


a gift of hope (and a thousand fingerprints)

by jemmasimmmons



Series: a thousand finger prints [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, Canon Divergent, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, including ward for necessity's sake but it's minimal, minimal angst, season one team appearances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-12-21 18:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21060071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: "‘Fitz.’‘Simmons. I’m engineering, she’s biochem. And he’s-‘‘Well, at six months old he’s still rather too young to have a specific field yet. Although a penchant for the scientific seems most likely given his genetic make-up. But at the moment-‘‘At the moment, he’s an absolute champion at peek-a-boo.’Special agent Grant Ward looks from one scientist to the other, before glancing at the pink cheeked, wide eyed baby strapped to the second’s chest. He wonders whether he might have bitten off more than he is willing to chew."Everything is the same, except Fitz and Jemma have a baby. A season one AU, aka the Ollie AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a little embarrassed about how long this has been in the works. i wrote the prequel back in 2017 (!!) and got halfway through the main au over the summer before university work and other projects took over my time and, slowly, i lost interest in going back to this universe. but this summer i came back to it, after realising exactly WHY i was so stuck and i was finally able to finish it.
> 
> a very important thing to note before we go any further is that this universe is not strictly mine. it also belongs to shay, eva, laura, diana and cindy, but they were all kind enough to let me be the one who wrote it down. i can only hope i've done them proud!
> 
> the title comes from sleeping at last's song "son". you can find me on twitter @jemmasimmmons and on tumblr @jeemmasimmons. i hope you enjoy this!

‘Fitzsimmons?’

‘Fitz.’

‘Simmons. I’m engineering, she’s biochem. And he’s-‘

‘Well, at six months old he’s still rather too young to have a specific field yet. Although a penchant for the scientific seems most likely given his genetic make-up. But at the moment-‘

‘At the moment, he’s an absolute champion at peek-a-boo.’

Special agent Grant Ward looks from one scientist to the other, before glancing at the pink cheeked, wide eyed baby strapped to the second’s chest. He wonders whether he might have bitten off more than he is willing to chew.

‘Muh-muh.’

For the first time in his life, Leopold Fitz does his best not to hear his son’s voice.

Ollie is repeating the same clumsy two syllables he had uttered that morning, the first he’d ever strung together that formed a recognisable word. It had been met with such delight from his mother, and even a begrudging pleasure from his father, that Ollie had been repeating it all day in the hope of producing the same response from his parents.

Unfortunately, the events of the afternoon meant that he was unlikely to get it.

‘Muh-muh.’

Fitz grits his teeth together, leaning back against the glass door of the lab as he grips the screwdriver harder.

Next to him, Ollie is sitting on his chubby legs with both hands pressed to the glass in front of him, his amber eyes fixed on Jemma, who is sitting right in front of him behind the door. He has no idea why she is locked in the lab whilst he and Fitz are locked out of it, nor can he see how pale his mother’s face has gone or how red-rimmed her eyes are and so for the moment he isn’t upset about it. For the moment, it is just a novel new game where he has her undivided attention.

‘Again, Ollie,’ Jemma coaxes, bringing her hand up to cover his. Her fingers quiver slightly as she smiles at him. ‘Who am I?’

Her voice is muffled and distorted thanks to the glass, but Ollie gurgles happily at it and claps his hands together.

‘Muh-muh! Muh-muh! Muh-muh!’

Finally, something inside Fitz snaps. Tossing his device and screwdriver to the ground, he scoops Ollie up with one arm and gets to his feet.

‘He needs changing,’ he lies, before Jemma can protest.

Unable to look her in the eye, he makes for the stairs up to the Bus. Crossing the living area, he finds Ward and Skye crowded around the holo-table but they both look up as he approaches.

Skye tries to smile at him, but her eyes freely betray her fear, anxiety, and horror. Fitz doesn’t even attempt to return the grimace, but presses a quick kiss to Ollie’s temple in a silent apology and holds him out to her.

‘Could you please…?’

With a curt nod, Skye takes Ollie into her arms, and the baby immediately reaches out for a long curl of her dark hair to twist around his little hand. Fitz doesn’t stay to watch him stuff Skye’s hair into his teething mouth but instead turns back to the stairs for the lab, furiously blinking back tears.

Jemma is waiting for him when he returns, on her feet with her white nose pressed up to the glass. Fitz watches her eyes cloud with disappointment when he appears without their son.

‘Where’s Ollie?’

‘Skye offered to change him, and then play with him upstairs.’ The lie comes freely to Fitz’s lips, although he feels a twist of guilt as he looks up to meet her gaze. ‘I figured it would give us more time to work on a solution if we weren’t worrying about him.’

Jemma opens her mouth as if to argue, then closes it again, her shoulders sagging. Fitz notices with a jolt of alarm that she has grown even paler in the few minutes he has been away from her and that there is a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. With every second that passed, the alien virus was sinking ever deeper into her body.

With a deep breath, he leans forward to pluck his device, the vaccine dispenser he has designed to save her life, from the floor and waves it at her.

‘Without him babbling in my ear all the time, I ought to have this done in just a few minutes.’

He doesn’t mean for it to come out so bitterly, but it does and he instantly regrets it. Behind the glass, Jemma’s eyes soften and she takes a step forward. Fitz knows that if she wasn’t locked away from him she’d have rested her hand on his shoulder now, and given it a comforting rub. He can practically feel her fingers on his shirt, a phantom limb.

‘Fitz…’ she says softly, and sighs. ‘I’m sure he’ll say _dada_ next.’

All of a sudden, a lump appears in Fitz’s throat and all he can do is nod, wishing that the cause of his irritability was as simple as jealousy.

Because how can he tell Jemma that the reason their son’s first word hurts so much is because it reminds him of how much they both have to lose?

That evening, time seems to speed up and Fitz hates it for it.

Once the realisation dawns on them that they could use the chitauri helmet to create a vaccine the world seems to narrow, to the chrome and glass boundaries of the lab and the ticking of the clock. As he and Jemma move around one another like planets in orbit, Fitz finds himself glancing up at it again and again, his heart pounding harder every time he sees the minute hand move.

Then, invariably, his gaze would flicker up to the doors of the lab, where their team is watching them work. Skye still has Ollie balanced on her hip and she holds him up to the glass so he can press his tiny palm against the door. A flicker of determination flares in Fitz’s gut and he turns his attention back to his work with gritted teeth.

_Give us more time_, he begs the clock.

_Give us more time to fix this. Give us more time to be a family._

Finally, the serum is finished and Fitz takes the dispenser into his hands. He is filled with a sudden desire to be the one to inject it into the rat, to be the one who brings this nightmare to an end. He glances at Jemma.

‘May I do the honours?’

She gives him a feeble smile, and in her red-rimmed eyes Fitz can see that their time is running out. He steps towards the rat cage and takes hold of the last of the small, wriggling animals with one hand and uses the other to inject it with the serum. With the click of the dispenser, he hopes he has stopped the clock.

For a moment, it feels like the entire world is holding its breath.

And then, nothing. The rat continues to scurry about his cage, apparently unaffected by the alien virus caught in his system. He lifts his head to them and twitches his whiskers.

‘We did it,’ Jemma whispers with disbelief.

Fitz starts as he feels her hand cover his. It has only been a few hours since they’d last touched but to him it has felt like years and he grips her fingers tight, dragging his eyes away from the rat to look at her.

Jemma’s face, in spite how exhausted she looks, how ill she must feel, is lit up with hope, and the sight of her beaming at him like that makes Fitz feel like his heart is going to burst. He grins back at her and (never mind that their entire team is watching, never mind that he is always shy about kissing her in front of _anyone_, let alone their colleagues) he steps forward to tilt her chin up, caress her cheek and –

The crackle of electricity in their peripheral vision makes them spring apart.

Turning towards the cage, Fitz feels his heart sink as he watches the lifeless body of the rat float ten inches above the sawdust floor.

‘No,’ he breathes.

Behind him, the ticking of the clock resumes, louder than ever before. Jemma’s hand pulls out of his like it has been burnt.

Fitz stares wordlessly at the rat, as if he could will it back to life by sheer force of wishing. Failure at this stage had never been an option for him, even though he knew Jemma had still been afraid. It was why she had hated him being in the lab with her as much as she had been comforted by it. She had been petrified that he would contract the virus from her and that they wouldn’t make a vaccine in time. That if that happened Ollie would be left parentless.

Fitz had never considered that. In his mind, the only outcome of that evening was Ollie falling asleep with two parents by his side, just as he had always done. Even now, as he watches the likelihood of that possibility die away in front of him, Fitz fails to imagine it being any other way.

Jemma moves away from him, over to the glass doors.

He hears her speaking to their team beyond, but he can’t make out the words. He barely listens, not wanting to hear the goodbyes he had been so determined she wouldn’t have to give. He stands frozen, his hands gripping the work-bench so tightly his knuckles must be white underneath his gloves, unable to move or think or feel.

_No_.

‘Can you say it again?’ he hears Jemma say to Ollie. ‘Can you say it once more for Mummy?’

His son stays silent, but the pleading note in Jemma’s voice and how close she sounds to tears makes Fitz shudder and he pulls himself upright with a sniff and reaches out for the dispenser. He removes the old vaccine container from it as, out of the corner of his eye, he sees his team retreat back up the stairs.

Jemma watches them go, falling back to stand behind him.

‘He couldn’t say it again,’ she says miserably.

‘We’ll get him to say it again tonight,’ Fitz promises, his fingers moving quickly to reset the dispenser. ‘Bribe it out of him with mushed strawberries before he goes to bed. But for now, we need to try again. The electrostatic pulse from the third rat seemed much less, so we’re making progress. If we can calibrate the anti-serum…’

Jemma gives a little exhale of breath as he indulges her with her preferred name for her vaccine, hoping it might jog her out of her reverie, as if even the word itself could be enough to save her life.

‘Anti-serum,’ she whispers, ‘yes. You finally got it right, Fitz.’

Fitz clicks the dispenser back into place, ready to try again.

‘I’m so sorry.’

Something hits the back of his neck, and for a moment the pain burns red before the world turns black.

Lying on his side, one hand held protectively over his sleeping son’s stomach, Fitz watches his bunk door.

Since she and Ward were retrieved from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Jemma has taken three showers, the steam from the hot water filling up the small bathroom on the Bus and the perfume from her soap seeping into the bunks. She can’t seem to be able to warm herself again, the cold of the salt water having chilled her to the bone, making her shiver even when she is tucked up in bed beside him.

Fitz understands how she feels. She has been virus free and by his side again for hours now, and yet he still can’t shake off the cold realisation that he’d almost lost her.

Every time he blinks, he sees Jemma standing on the cargo ramp, wind whipping her hair and a look of haunting despair on her face. It sends waves of panic over him, tightening his stomach and making it harder for him to breathe. He can feel her name caught in his throat and the hard coldness of the door keeping him from reaching her.

Fitz doesn’t think he’s ever felt as hopeless as he had in that moment.

As the door creaks open, he pulls his eyes away from it, feeling strangely guilty. Jemma pads quietly across the floor and pulls back the sheets to climb back into bed. Her skin is flushed pink from the hot water and the thin tendrils of hair on her cheeks and her neck are still damp, curling slightly around her face.

‘Better?’ Fitz asks.

She nods, resting her head on the pillow next to Ollie. ‘Yeah. I feel a lot warmer now.’

Even as she says the words, though, she shivers and Fitz tugs another blanket over to her side. Jemma gives him a brief smile of gratitude, pulling it around her, before her gaze settles on their son.

Ollie is fast asleep on his back, his mouth parted so that he is giving little snores, and his limbs splayed out like a starfish. His sleep is peaceful and unburdened, unaware as he is that he could have lost his mother today. Unaware that his father could have lost half his world.

Jemma takes one of Ollie’s tiny hands in her own and kisses it. She is watching him as if she is afraid he will fade away in front of her if she stops.

‘He’s fine,’ Fitz whispers, before adding awkwardly, ‘you’re _both_ fine.’

Jemma nods again, but she doesn’t take her eyes away from Ollie, and Fitz feels a wave of guilt once more. They _are_ both fine, but in the end it hadn’t been thanks to him at all.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles into the darkness, ‘that it wasn’t me.’

Jemma blinks at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Fitz repeats, his voice trembling, ‘that it wasn’t…that I didn’t…’ He sighs, unsure how to phrase it. ‘I was about to do it, you know. The anti-serum, the parachute…’

‘Oh, Fitz…’Jemma’s face softens in realisation, and it only makes him feel worse.

‘It was the straps,’ he tries to explain, gesturing to his shoulders. ‘They just wouldn’t fit on right, but if they _had_, I…’

‘Fitz, please!’

‘…would have given the whole James-Bond-in-mid-air thing a go, I just…’

‘Fitz!’

Leaning up onto her elbow, Jemma stretches across Ollie to place her finger over his lips to shut him up. She fixes him with a look, beseeching him to listen to her, and Fitz feels his shoulders sag and the words he had been planning on saying fade away.

‘I’m grateful to Ward for what he did, yes,’ Jemma concedes, removing her hand. ‘Without him, I wouldn’t be here with you now. But he wasn’t the one who wouldn’t leave my side all day. He wasn’t the one who gave me hope when I had none.’

Her voice has grown soft, making the hairs on Fitz’s forearms prickle. When she lies back down on the mattress, she snakes out a hand to find his under the blankets and gives it a squeeze.

‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ she says, ‘that it wasn’t you. Because it _was_ you, Fitz. You’re the hero.’

The word, so unlike how Fitz is thinking of himself, makes him start and for a moment all he can do is blink at her. In his mind, a hero did things like Ward had done: decisive actions like jumping out of planes, and feats of perseverance like treading water with an unconscious body for an hour. He had done nothing like that, and yet it is him that Jemma is calling the hero.

‘Yeah?’ he croaks.

Jemma nods, threading her fingers through his. ‘Yeah.’

She shuffles closer to him, pressing Ollie gently between them. Fitz opens his arms to allow them all to nestle together, the way they have done countless times.

Jemma brushes her thumb across his cheekbone just as Fitz notices the tick of her watch by his ear, reminding him that, despite the odds stacked against them, he has been graced with more time.

‘Thank you,’ he hears Jemma whisper, as Ollie squirms in his sleep. ‘For being _our_ hero.’

When they’d arrived at the Hub that morning, Jemma had been practically bubbling over with excitement.

She had been desperate to look over the new chem kit and pick out a few new pieces of equipment, but mostly she wanted to proudly show Ollie off to the lab staff. He was beginning to crawl quite nicely now, and had the sweetest way of scooting around on his bum with the most delighted smile on his face. Every day seemed to yield something new to marvel at in her son and, as much as Jemma loved sharing that with Fitz, she could hardly wait to show him off to a fresh audience.

By the time they had returned to the Bus however, her excitement had completely fizzled out.

‘I just can't believe you're going in dark, in hostile territory, without comms, lacking any real physical strength.’

If she’d looked up, she’d have seen Fitz bristle slightly at these words. He pauses, before reaching out for the next thing to pack in his rucksack.

‘I’ll be fine.’

Jemma swallows, feeling her stomach knot with miserable anxiety. In all the time she had spent thinking about what their new life on a mobile unit would be like, she had never imagined that something like this would happen. Fitz, heading off on his first field mission, his first assignment from a level seven agent, walking eyes open into incalculable danger…without her.

It was almost unthinkable.

Ollie is crawling across the duvet, babbling happily to himself, completely unaware of the events unfolding in front of him. Feeling a sudden need for comfort, Jemma reaches out to draw him onto her lap and hugs him close to her chest, listening to his little heart thump. For a moment she closes her eyes and allows the sound to sooth her, but after a moment Ollie gives a grunt of frustration and she opens them again.

He sinks back onto her lap and immediately makes a grab for something hidden in the folds of the blankets. When Jemma sees what it is, she quickly extracts it from his grasping fingers.

‘Oh! Ollie found your anti-venom pack!’

She holds it out to Fitz, who looks from it to her and tilts his head to one side in disbelief. Pursing her lips together, Jemma tries to push it into his hands.

‘The Caucasus have a plethora of highly endemic spider species,’ she adds emphatically.

With a groan, Fitz takes the pack. ‘Jemma, you have to stop.’

‘Stop what? I just want you to be safe. And you know how itchy you get when you’re bitten by a mosquito, so…’

‘Jemma.’

He says her name so firmly that Jemma immediately breaks off. She looks up at him, and for the first time since they’d been told about his mission, Fitz looks her in the eye.

He holds her gaze steadily, and Jemma is more than a little startled to see the quiet strength and determination in the way he is looking at her. It sends a highly inappropriate thrill running down her spine.

‘I can do this,’ Fitz tells her. ‘Thank you.’

He turns away again to test his torch and doesn’t take the anti-venom pack from her outstretched hand.

Letting it drop back onto the bed, Jemma slumps against the wall of their bunk. Her heart feels heavy at being chastised by him and, as Ollie breaks free of her arms with a _harrumph_ and falls back onto the duvet, she has to hold herself back from starting to cry.

Fitz must have noticed this, because he leans over his rucksack to scoop Ollie up into his arms. Their son shrieks with delight as Fitz lifts him above his head to blow a raspberry on his stomach before settling him on his hip.

‘Hey,’ he says to him, ‘you have to promise me you’ll look after Mum while I’m gone. Don’t let her do anything rash, yeah?’ Over the top of Ollie’s head, Fitz gives Jemma a wry smile that almost looks like an apology. ‘Like jump out of an airplane.’

Jemma lets out a quiet huff of laughter and feels the tightness in her chest ease. On the whole, Fitz has been very good about her jump. Mostly, she knew, he understood why she’d done it even if he didn’t like it, but there was also a part of him that had been deeply hurt by her actions.

Looking up at the two of them now Jemma feels a flicker of guilt, weeks after the event. Even so, she knows that she would do the same thing all over again if she had to. She would always do whatever it took to keep them both alive.

Fitz deposits Ollie back onto her lap and, before he can pull away, Jemma takes hold of his hand and grips it tight.

‘You’ll be careful,’ she says, a hopeful statement of fact rather than a request.

Fitz nods, his fingers slowly sliding between hers to swing her hand lightly.

‘Yeah. I’ve handled worse.’

It takes Jemma a moment to realise that he is talking about nearly losing her.

It is only when Fitz pulls the ties of his rucksack together that she remembers the present she has for him. She removes the paper bag from where she’d hidden it behind her pillow and hopes that this new, determined, field agent partner of hers won’t reject it the way he had the anti-venom pack.

‘If there’s still some room in there,’ she says, ‘Ollie and I made you your favourite sandwich. Prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella.’

She needn’t have worried. Fitz’s eyes light up as he takes the bag and he opens it up to inhale deeply.

‘With your homemade pesto aioli?’

Jemma smiles at him as he packs the sandwich carefully into his rucksack, feeling her heart glow. Just like that, any flicker of tension between them has dissipated. It was that easy, just as it had always been.

‘Just a hint.’

With Ollie in her arms, she follows Fitz out of their bunk to the holo-table where Ward is receiving his last instructions from Coulson. They both look very serious, and Jemma’s stomach tightens once more.

She feels Fitz’s fingers brush her arm, and turns towards him just as he leans down to kiss her. His lips are soft and familiar, the kiss light and over far too soon. Jemma curls her fingers into her fist to stop herself gripping onto his jacket and tries to smile as Fitz ruffles Ollie’s curls.

He had been brave for her. Now it is her turn to be brave for him.

‘More moving, less talking, Agent Ward,’ Fitz remarks briskly to the level seven agent as he steps away from his family, adjusting the straps on his back as he goes. ‘It’s time to head out.’

Jemma sees Ward close his eyes briefly, steeling himself, before following him to the stairs. She takes a step forward, willing Fitz to look back at her and, as if he had heard her, he pauses and turns around.

Taking a deep breath, Jemma gives him a beaming smile and a nod, before lifting up Ollie’s tiny fist to encourage him to wave in his father’s direction. Fitz grins, and waves back.

Then, he turns his back to her and is gone.

Jemma tries her hardest to walk slowly down the security corridor, schooling her features into an inconspicuous expression. The fact that she is holding both Ollie and his nappy-changing bag works in her favour, as she has learnt over the past year that carrying a baby through a SHIELD facility makes you all but invisible.

Usually, this irritated her, but today she has never been more thankful.

‘_And remember_,’ Skye prompts her via their comms, ‘_once you plug the flash drive in, you’ll only have about_-‘

‘Three minutes before SHIELD catches on,’ Jemma finishes, hoisting Ollie higher onto her hip. She wonders if he can feel her heart thumping ever faster.

In her ear, she hears Skye sigh. ‘_Simmons._ _You do realize that you keep finishing my_-‘

‘Your sentences.’ Jemma winces, knowing that she has just done it again. ‘I know. I'm sorry. It’s a bad habit.’

Skye falls pointedly silent on the other end, just as aware as Jemma herself is that it is a bad habit she has picked up from finishing so many of Fitz’s sentences. Really, it was a bad habit that they both shared.

Thinking about this inevitably turns Jemma’s thoughts to Fitz himself. Fitz, who is unaccounted for. Fitz, who could be being tortured.

The words had been repeating themselves over and over in her mind ever since Skye had first hinted the idea to her. The thought of it had made shivers run down Jemma’s spine then and it still did now. Fitz kicked up a fuss about going to the dentist for a filling. Thinking about somebody hurting him, and _really_ hurting him, made fear and fury lick at her insides. Once the thought was planted in her head, she was ready to agree to anything Skye proposed might help.

‘And when you think about it,’ Jemma murmurs to Ollie, sucking his fingers on her hip, ‘all this sneaking around? Organisational espionage? It’s actually a bit thrilling.’

Her son blinks his amber eyes back at her as she opens the security panel, before tucking her device back into the nappy bag and beginning to search for somewhere to insert the USB stick. Hopefully, once she has downloaded the data, Skye will be able to find his father.

‘Agent Simmons?’

_Oh no_.

A sudden wave of heat rushes from Jemma’s head to her toes as she tries not to immediately panic at the sound of Agent Sitwell’s bemused tone right behind her.

‘_It's fine_,’ Skye insists. ‘_Just play it cool_.’

Swallowing hard, Jemma pins a bright smile to her face and turns around to face him.

‘Agent Sitwell, sir!’ she says, hoisting Ollie higher into her arms. ‘What a surprise to see you here.’

The senior agent returns her smile. ‘Oh, call me Jasper, please.’ His gaze flicks to Ollie and he reaches out to tickle him underneath his chin, his large dark eyes taking on a moony expression. ‘And who’s this little one?’

Jemma forces herself to keep smiling as Ollie squirms under the unfamiliar touch.

‘Oliver,’ she says. For some reason, she finds herself unwilling to share her son’s nickname with Agent Sitwell.

‘Hello, Oliver.’ Sitwell crouches down so he is on the baby’s level, an embarrassingly patronising move. ‘What are you and mommy doing in a restricted hallway this late at night?’

He is using a baby-talk voice, but his words have an edge of danger in them. Jemma’s heart skips a beat.

‘_Focus_,’ Skye orders in her ear. ‘_Just make up an excuse_.’

‘We were making our way to the changing facilities,’ Jemma stammers. She gestures vaguely to the wall beside her. ‘Agent May gave me directions before I left the Bus but I seem to have completely forgotten them. You know what it’s like in the Hub, I’ve been taking wrong turns all day. Anyway, is this it here?’

Sitwell follows her finger to where she is pointing, then fixes her with a look.

‘That’s a wall panel,’ he says dryly. ‘Do you have authorisation to access it?’

In Jemma’s arms, Ollie stiffens, sensitive to his mother’s growing anxiety. He starts to grizzle, turning his head to bury it in her neck and clinging onto her jumper.

‘_Say yes_,’ Skye tells her. ‘_Say that you do_!’

‘Of course,’ Jemma lies miserably. ‘Of course I do.’ Holding Ollie with one arm, she opens the nappy bag with the other to mime searching for it. ‘I certainly have it right here in my bag…’

She can feel Sitwell’s eyes boring into her back and her fingers start to shake.

‘He’s onto me,’ she mumbles into her comm in panic.

‘_Stop talking to me! He can hear you!_’

‘You know, Agent Simmons,’ Sitwell says behind her, ‘I’m sure you’d be able to find your authorisation much faster if you had two hands free…’

Jemma feels his hands slide underneath Ollie’s armpits. A white-hot surge of anger and fear floods her veins, just as her fingers brush against the cool metal of the night-night gun. The next thing she knows, Agent Sitwell is lying on his back on the carpet with a blue dendrotoxin bullet in his chest.

‘_Oh my god_,’ Jemma hears Skye whisper in her ear. ‘_Oh my god_.’

Oblivious to the two women’s distress, Ollie gurgles with amusement, as though the entire pantomime had been enacted solely for his pleasure.

With her heart still pounding, Jemma pulls the USB out of the wall panel and sticks the night-night gun back into the nappy-bag. Hovering uncertainly over the unconscious agent’s body, she eventually decides just to leave him where he is. Trying hard to look unconcerned, she lifts her head high and scurries back down the corridor to where Skye is waiting for them.

‘Mummy just shot Agent Sitwell,’ she mutters under her breath to Ollie as they go. ‘But it’s good. Everything is good, good, good.’

On the other side of the door, Skye looks absolutely horrified. As she passes the USB over to her, Jemma grimaces, wondering for the first time since Skye had hatched the plan whether she ought to have prepared her friend for her hideous lying skills and even worse acting.

‘Well?’ she asks hopefully. ‘Was that alright?’

At the sound of Fitz’s voice, drifting across the loading bay to reach her, Jemma’s ears prick up. Scooping Ollie up off the lab counter, she forces herself to walk at a normal pace towards the door, fully aware of Skye’s eyes boring into her back as she goes. She can only imagine the grin that is spreading across her friend’s face.

Fitz is standing with Coulson and Ward in the loading bay. He has his back to her, unable to see her approach, but as he turns to say something to Coulson, Jemma sees the expression on his face. There is something serious in his eyes, a look so determined and grown-up, that for a moment she feels herself grow absurdly shy.

But then he looks up and notices her, and it all melts away.

‘Hi,’ he breathes, stepping away from Ward and Coulson to lean towards her.

Fully aware of their whole team watching them, Jemma closes her eyes as he kisses her cheek, feeling her skin blush underneath his lips.

‘Hi,’ she whispers back.

In her arms, Ollie starts to clamour for his father’s attention, and Fitz takes him from her, tossing him gently into the air, much to his delight. Jemma cannot help but smile, feeling the last of the day’s anxieties ebb away as she watches the two of them. Around them, their team begin to drift away, returning to their individual responsibilities and spheres. Finally, they are all back where they belong.

‘Oh!’ Remembering the parting gift she had given him that morning, Jemma starts to enquire after it. ‘Your sandwich. How was…’

She is interrupted by Fitz, who, having glanced around to check that they are alone, steps forward to take her waist with his free hand. Pulling her closer to him, he kisses her properly and Jemma feels a warm shudder of delight. Eagerly, she grips his shoulder, revelling in the rough press of his lips against her own. His first field mission, and he has come back to them whole.

‘It was delicious,’ Fitz says once they have pulled apart, and Jemma notices that this time it is his cheeks that are pink. ‘Thank you.’

She smiles, and takes him by the hand to lead him back into the lab. Their kiss seems to have gifted Fitz with an extra burst of confidence, as they have barely reached the bench before he is boasting, ‘I had Ward’s back the whole time.’

Jemma hums in agreement.

‘Pretty much saved him from a gang of Russian mobsters and kicked a few guys' heads in.’

‘Oh?’

‘Mm.’ Fitz stretches nonchalantly, arching his back. ‘But enough mission talk already.’ He kisses the downy top of Ollie’s head. ‘Anything exciting happen at the Hub?’

Looking up, Jemma gives him a sweet smile.

‘I shot a superior officer in the chest.’

She isn’t quite sure what makes the moment more hilarious: the look of abject horror on Fitz’s face, or Ollie’s impeccable comedic timing in choosing that exact moment to reach up and pinch his father’s nose.

‘This is hardly fair,’ Fitz hears Ward complain as he walks into the Bus’ main living area. ‘It’s two against one!’

His team are playing scrabble, the most popular of the board games Coulson had bought to stock the plane’s cabinets. He, Ward and Skye are sitting on their own, but Jemma, tucked up in an armchair, has Ollie perched on her lap with her scrabble letters in the pocket of his bib. She throws Ward a smug smile.

‘You must be a very poor scrabble player, Agent Ward, to feel threatened by an eight-month old baby.’

Ward opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, Fitz clears his throat. The team swivel their heads towards him – and immediately burst out laughing.

‘It’s not funny,’ Fitz insists, stony-faced. Or, at least, as stony-faced as he can be when half his face is covered in whipped cream. ‘I was sleeping. _Peacefully_…’

This last part, he directs pointedly at Jemma. Ollie had been sleeping poorly for the last few weeks, wanting to nap during the day and play at night. Consequently, the two of them had been sleeping just as badly, and grasped at every opportunity they could to get an extra forty winks.

Even after their prank filled day of Academy nostalgia, Fitz is a little offended that his best friend would disrupt his much needed sleep so callously.

Jemma has one hand over her mouth to hide her laughter, but Fitz can see the way her eyes are sparkling over the top of her fingers. He gives her a hard look.

‘Yes, very clever, Simmons…’

Her jaw drops, and she shakes her head incredulously. ‘I didn’t…_I_ didn’t do it!’

‘Oh.’ Fitz frowns. She, along with their gleeful son on her lap, had been his prime suspect. A dollop of whipped cream on fruit was Ollie’s current favourite treat, and Jemma always kept a can to hand in the fridge.

But on second thoughts, he reflects, that would make it just as accessible to anyone on the team…

‘Well, then, Ward,’ he accuses the team member nearest to Jemma. ‘I don’t appreciate-‘

The specialist holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence, and Fitz starts to doubt that anyone is going to own up to the prank.

‘Skye…’ he tries desperately, but she just shakes her head at him, clearly trying to hold in her giggles.

‘Then _who_?’

Coulson snorts, which sets Skye off laughing again and she doubles over on the couch. Fitz rolls his eyes as Ward joins in, his hand held over his eyes, and huffs in annoyance. Typical, absolutely bloody typical.

Across the room, Jemma gets to her feet, scooping the scrabble letters out of Ollie’s bib.

‘Come on,’ she says, nudging him towards the bathroom. ‘Let’s clean you off, hmm?’

‘The bunks,’ Fitz grumbles as he allows her to herd him forward, ‘ought to be off limits…’

‘Oh, I _know_…’

‘I was sleeping peacefully…’

‘Mmm…oh, Fitz, hold Ollie for a moment.’

‘Sure, I- wait, why?’

‘I just thought what an adorable photo it would be if you let him lick your face…’

‘Simmons.’

‘Let me get my phone…’

‘Jemma.’

‘Oh, Fitz, just a little bit!’

‘Jemma, _no_.’

Returning to the Academy just a few months after they’d left for the second time was even stranger than their return from Sci-Ops had been. Standing on the hill in front of the main lecture building with her team, Jemma can see their old flat before them, no doubt occupied by some new lecturer by now. Uncertainty swoops through her stomach.

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have brought Ollie after all,’ she murmurs to Fitz. He has their son strapped to his chest in the baby bjorn, and is bouncing his feet as they talk. ‘Do you think being here will confuse him at all, or upset him? Coming back to where he spent most of his babyhood, I mean?’

Fitz frowns, and glances down at Ollie. ‘No, I don’t think so. He seems happy enough, doesn’t he?’

‘He’s perfectly happy,’ Skye cuts in, reaching across Ward to ruffle the baby’s curls. They have grown longer over the last few weeks, and Jemma has been beginning to reluctantly wonder whether she ought to start cutting them.

‘Aren’t you?’ Skye coos to Ollie, who kicks his legs out at her in response. ‘You are a perfectly happy genius baby, who can’t wait to sit with Auntie Skye to watch your genius Mommy and Daddy give their lecture to all the other baby geniuses.’

‘Uh, actually,’ Fitz says with a wince, sharing a reluctant glance with Jemma, ‘we thought we’d take Ollie onto the stage with us for the talk.’

‘The cadets know him,’ Jemma explains, as Skye’s face falls. ‘They used to love seeing him when we gave lectures and a few of them even used to babysit for us. They’ll want to see how much he’s grown, and we thought have a baby there might lighten the mood of the talk a little bit.’

‘He might even be an incentive,’ Ward adds snidely. ‘You can’t settle down and have a kid with your lab partner if you’ve used SHIELD resources to kill them beforehand.’

Fitz’s head jerks up and Jemma places a pacifying hand on his arm before he can snap back at the specialist. She smiles hopefully at Skye.

‘_After_ the talk, however,’ she says as if Ward had never spoken, ‘Fitz and I might be required to help with the investigation of the frozen pool. It would be awfully helpful, Skye, if you wouldn’t mind watching Ollie then?’

‘Um, _yeah_.’ Skye’s whole face brightens, and she hops in front of Fitz to squeeze the baby’s cheeks. Ollie squeals, and laughs along with her. ‘You are going to have more fun this afternoon than you’ve had in all your short life, little guy.’

‘If you can make him so tired that he sleeps through the night,’ Fitz tells her, ‘you can watch him for all of tomorrow as well. Just, whatever you do, _don’t_ take him to the pool.’

Skye beams, and unfastens Ollie from the bjorn to hoist him into her own arms. ‘You’ve got it, Dad.’

At the bottom of the hill, Agent Weaver is waving to them. Jemma waves back, feeling her heart leap to see their old teacher, a woman she thought fondly of as a kind of mentor. She leans into Fitz’s side as they lead their team down to meet her.

‘How long,’ Fitz murmurs, low enough for only her to hear, ‘do you think Skye will be able to last?’

Jemma smiles, and tucks her hand into his elbow. ‘Bet you a foot rub she makes it past five.’

‘Deal.’

Making her way back across the Boiler Room floor with two beers in hand, Jemma sees the glint in Skye’s eyes from three tables away and groans inwardly. She should have known her brief exchange with the server behind the bar would be guaranteed to raise both her friend’s curiosity and her eyebrows.

She sits down and waits for the onslaught.

Skye wastes no time and leans further forward in her seat, grinning.

‘Simmons…do you know that guy?’

Jemma passes her one of the beers and lifts her own to her lips. ‘I think ‘know’ might been overstating it a bit. But, yes. He and I have met before.’

Skye is passing Ollie sugar packet after sugar packet from the table top, and Jemma glances down to see that her son has discovered they rattle when he shakes them in his tiny fist. He gurgles at her from his pushchair, waving his prize in her direction. She smiles, and bops him on the nose.

‘You’ve _met_ before.’

Skye purses her lips and Jemma hopes that she will leave it at that. Of course, she does not get that lucky.

‘Wait.’ Skye’s eyes widen and she gasps. ‘Did you guys…?’

Her question, dripping with innuendo, trails off, but Jemma understands immediately what she is asking.

Pulling a face at the memory, she sets her beer down on the table. ‘Only once.’

Jemma wrinkles up her nose as she tries to remember that night. She had pushed it so far back into her memory that it had taken her several moments at the bar to realise why the server had recognised her face.

It had been in the first few months of her first term at the Academy and they’d met during a night like this, drinking in the boiler room and playing games of pool. She hadn’t met Fitz properly yet. It was funny, Jemma muses, how she divides her life into two parts: not knowing Fitz and knowing him. A before and an after.

Skye is still looking at her, expectantly, and Jemma drags her attention back to the man behind the bar.

‘His features are generically attractive,’ she notes, ‘and highly symmetrical. Unfortunately, the quality of his brain did not match that of his body.’

Skye frowns. ‘What?’

Jemma drains her bottle. ‘He was boring.’

She remembers now how little interest he’d shown in her ideas when she’d tried to talk to him about them. He’d smiled, obligingly and without understanding, before kissing her slovenly and falling asleep on his dorm floor. Altogether, it had been a rather dissatisfying experience.

‘Wow.’ Skye stares at her with a newfound respect. ‘I’ve got to admit, when I imagined you and Fitz pre-Ollie, I just pictured the two of you alone. Working in your lab.’ She picks up her bottle to hide her face in her drink. ‘Eating paste…’

Jemma snorts. ‘Oh, of course you did. I’ll have you know, Skye, I was quite the catch back in the day. Still am, in fact…’

Skye all but splutters her last gulp of beer, shaking her head. ‘No, I know…’

‘I have a _pulse_, you know…’

‘Uh, yeah, I know! Seeing as you have a _son_, it would be kind of hard not to know that.’

They are interrupted by a tearing sound, and both turn their heads in time to see that Ollie had somehow managed to rip his sugar packet apart and it has split open, covering him, his pushchair and the floor in hundreds of tiny, white granules. Ollie blinks, and his lower lip starts to quiver dangerously.

Jemma springs from her seat to brush the sugar off him before it melts, fumbling in the back of the pushchair for a toy to distract him. Before she can though, Skye has reached onto the table next door to retrieve a wooden salt-shaker instead. She presents it to Ollie, who takes a shuddering gasp and reaches out to grab the new object with a look of wide-eyed wonder.

‘Okay,’ Skye says, brushing residue salt off her hands as Jemma sinks back into her seat. ‘I stand corrected.’ She glances across the table with a grin. ‘Simmons had boyfriends before she had a baby.’

‘Well…’ Jemma grimaces, before admitting, ‘not quite. I never really found anyone interesting enough, before Fitz. He was clearly the smartest one here.’

‘Ah.’ Skye nods knowingly, her eyes shining at her across the table. She leans forward, dropping her chin into her hands and batting her eyelashes. ‘And it was love at first sight?’

Jemma rolls her eyes, remembering their early days at the Academy.

‘Hardly! We weren’t even _friends_ at first sight. We were enemies, bitter rivals.’ When she sees Skye’s eyebrows shoot up, she leans across the table conspiratorially. ‘He hated me. _Hated_ me.’

It had felt like such a snub to her at the time that the person nearest her age and IQ in their class had shown such abhorrence to her from the first. He’d stared at her so hard in class that she’d been unable to concentrate, feeling his eyes burning holes in the back of her head. For the first few months of the semester, she had all but sulked about it, before deciding that if Leopold Fitz wanted an enemy then an enemy he would get.

Even then though, she had struggled to maintain any distance. Like she told Skye, he had been by far the smartest and most interesting student (aside from herself). Without really meaning to, she’d ended up following his every move, sitting across from him at the library and matching her strides to his on the way to classes. Looking back on herself now, she realises it had only been a matter of time.

Skye is staring at her in disbelief, clearly struggling to believe that two people could go from hating one another to being parents in the space of so few years, and Jemma realises that she may have to elaborate.

‘He wouldn’t speak to me whenever I tried to engage him. He constantly tried to one up me in our classes, talking over me in group work. I was beginning to think he was just an arse.’ She shakes her head, and sighs.

Skye’s eyes are as wide as saucers. ‘So, what happened?’

Jemma shrugs. ‘We were paired together in chem lab. Personally, I think our professors had enough and decided to get us to hash it out, once and for all. We fought it for the first few days but then we…oh, I don’t know. I suppose we realised that combined we were twice as smart.’

She can hear the affection in her voice, her lips curving into a soft smile as she speaks. Clearly Skye can hear it too. She tilts her head to one side and grins as she observes Ollie in his pushchair.

‘And now the two of you _have_ combined. Hey, do you reckon that makes Ollie _three_ times as smart?’

Jemma chuckles, reaching over to unclasp her son and lift him onto her knee. ‘I suppose so! We’ll have to just wait and see.’

She kisses the top of Ollie’s head, made slightly sticky with sugar. ‘What I do know is that there’s no one I’d rather be paired with. Fitz is my partner, for better or for worse. I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

A sappy smile spreads across Skye’s face. ‘Aw.’

Half a beat later, Jemma looks up at her sternly, fully aware of what her friend might be thinking.

‘But now, don’t you tell him that I’ve told you any of that,’ she warns.

She can just picture the smug look on Fitz’s face if Skye dared to repeat her words to him, and the teasing she’d have to endure. As much as she loves him, that really would be unbearable.

‘We don’t want his head getting any bigger than it already is.’

Fitz watches Donnie Gill move about his dorm room warily. Aside from Ollie, he had very little experience with children, and he doubts that this teenager would appreciate him treating him the same way he would his nine-month-old son.

Instead he is trying to talk to Donnie the way he wished someone had talked to him when he was this age: as an equal, as someone who understood and was willing to listen. Fitz can only hope that this will be enough.

‘It’s true what they say, then,’ Donnie says, with more than a hint of admiration in his tone. ‘You really are the smartest person to come through here.’

Fitz feels his ears prick up, and his heart thumps. Between teaching and parenthood, he hadn’t managed to tune into Academy gossip during the year he and Jemma had lived on site. He had suspected the two of them were talked about among the cadets, but this confirmation piques his curiosity, although he tries not to let it show.

He raises a single eyebrow in a semblance of disinterest. ‘Is that really what they say?’

When Donnie nods, a curious mixture of pride and modesty swells in Fitz’s chest and he pushes his shoulders back.

‘Yeah…well, maybe. Simmons is probably smarter - _technically_,’ he admits reluctantly, ‘but that’s only because she likes homework more than life itself. She’s like a walking encyclopaedia.’

Donnie laughs, bolstering Fitz’s confidence. The teenager rubs his hands against his forearms, the mention of Jemma apparently throwing him deep into thought.

‘You two are really lucky to have each other,’ he says after a brief pause, turning away to fold some papers. ‘You always have someone to talk to.’

Sensing that this train of thought wasn’t helping him much, Fitz changes tactic and tries to appeal to something he is hoping they both have in common.

‘You know, I didn’t like it here much to start with either,’ he says, perching on Donnie’s desk and crossing his arms. Glancing up, he sees Donnie frown and turn back to him in surprise.

‘You didn’t?’

Fitz shakes his head. He’s a little unsure why he’s telling this to a teenager he’d only met that morning, after almost a decade of never mentioning it to anyone. Even Jemma only knew the bare bones. But as he takes in Donnie’s dejected posture and hungry eyes, he wonders whether he can’t help himself because he is reminded so much of himself during those early days.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I had always been shy. A bit of a loner. My mum did her best at home, but I might as well have been speaking Japanese when I tried to talk electronics.’

Donnie nods, and Fitz sees that this is something he can relate to. ‘The kids in my hometown wouldn’t talk to me,’ he confesses. ‘And when SHIELD told my dad I was gifted, he said: _at what_?’

Fitz holds himself back from wincing, and feels a pang of bitterness inside his chest, both for himself and for the kid in front of him.

‘Well, hang on in there,’ he says, a little awkwardly, holding himself back from clapping Donnie on the shoulder like some misplaced father figure. ‘You’ll find a friend.’

The younger man gives a soft snort of disbelief, as though he finds even this too absurd to consider. Fitz remembers that doubt, remembers how hard it had been to believe that anyone would ever like him – let alone want to be his friend. He presses on, eager to leave Donnie with some comfort, however sparse it might be.

‘Hey, it took me a while,’ he says. ‘I always knew that Simmons and I would get on, but I wanted to make sure I impressed her first. So, I spent months trying to think of something interesting enough to lead with.’

Donnie starts to smile again, and Fitz feels his cheeks burn as he remembers how determined her had been not to speak a word to her until he’d found the most perfect sentence to act as a conversation starter. Considering that now he said the most absurdly mundane things to her every day, it seems a little ridiculous in retrospection.

‘Eventually, we were paired together in class and after a few more days I found the right thing to say to her.’

‘And then you ended up getting together,’ Donnie remarks, sounding dazed by such a prospect, as though the mere idea of connecting with someone on such a level was beyond his imagination. ‘_And _having a baby.’

‘Not exactly.’ Fitz shoots him a rueful smile. ‘The whole ‘getting together’ part took a whole lot longer, and was a lot more fuss, than just becoming friends. I lost count of how much bloody paperwork I had to sign to get that Section 17 exemption. And don’t even get Simmons started on the nine months of pregnancy, and-’

‘But it was worth it?’

The unexpectedness of Donnie’s question pulls Fitz up short. He blinks at the younger man for a moment, his mouth still half-open.

‘I-I don’t…what are you…?’

‘It was worth it, right?’ Donnie reiterates, crossing his arms over his chest self-consciously. ‘All of that stuff that you had to do to have each other and to have your family. To not be by yourself anymore. It was worth it?’

For a minute, Fitz flounders. He thinks back to when he was Donnie’s age; or actually, when he was even younger. He pictures himself sitting on a narrow, creaky bed in a dark dorm room identical to this, remembering that gaping feeling of loneliness, and being an ocean away from everything he had ever known.

Then, he thinks about he and Jemma’s bunk on the Bus, with Ollie’s cot next to their bed and their photographs and toiletries scattered on the shelves. Tonight before they go to bed, she will kiss him goodnight, and they will slip between the blankets and he will hold her to his chest until she falls asleep. And when he does, any memory of loneliness will be just that – a distant, fading memory.

Fitz nods, giving Donnie his answer.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘More worth it than anything else I’ve ever done in my life.’

Jemma’s fingers hover uncertainly over the keyboard. It is not that she does not know what to type. In fact, it is precisely the opposite. She knows exactly how Seth Dormer’s story ended because she was there, hovering over his lifeless body with the defibrillator and an acute desperation to save him. Unfortunately though, it hadn’t been enough. Which is why she is finding it so hard to conclude his autopsy report.

His family will read this, she thinks to herself. His mother. Her heart sinks even further inside her chest and she has to brace herself against the desk. How could she ever find the right words to tell another parent that her child was dead?

The responsibility weighs heavy as Jemma types her final few words, suppressing her instinct to add on that she is sorry for their loss. That is not for her to do. SHIELD will do that, send an agent and a letter to the family. She wonders how they will explain that Seth’s name will not be added to the wall of valour. It makes her head ache.

The autopsy report sent off, the sound of footsteps outside the lab have Jemma turning towards them. Skye appears in the doorway, Ollie balanced on her hip.

‘I know I promised I’d keep him all afternoon,’ she says, her voice wobbling, ‘but, uh, there’s something I want to do before we leave. Would you be mad if I...’

Jemma is already crossing the room to take her son from Skye’s arms. Just hours before, her hands had been unable to save another woman’s son. Now, what they need most of all is to hold her own.

‘It’s alright, Skye,’ she says softly, breathing in Ollie’s warm, baby smell. ‘I’ve got him for now.’

Skye gives her a faint smile and touches her arm as she leaves the lab and heads down the cargo ramp. Jemma watches her go, feeling a twinge of worry at how dejected the younger girl had looked. It seemed she wasn’t the only one grappling with demons this evening.

Speaking of which.

‘Fitz?’ Jemma steps onto the cargo ramp, one hand on the back of Ollie’s head. ‘Are you there?’

There is a small grunt from behind May’s SUV. Walking around it, Jemma finds Fitz sitting on one of the fold-down chairs, twisting a parachute strap in his hands. He is staring straight ahead, his eyes unblinking and unfocused. His shoulders are slumped and he looks like a man carrying the weight of the world on them. It hurts Jemma’s heart to see him like this.

Part of her wants to kneel beside him, place Ollie on his lap, and hold him in her arms until the pain goes away. She’d heard what Donnie had said to him before he’d been led away. She knows how much of what had happened Fitz will be taking on himself.

But she also knows her best friend. He will need her comfort, certainly, but only when he has decided he is ready. For now, all she can do is let him know she is there for him when he is.

‘Ollie’s hungry,’ Jemma whispers. She shifts their son in her arms, hoping his baby coos will lift his father’s attention. When they don’t, she tries not to be disappointed. ‘We’re going up to the kitchen. Come join us soon?’

Fitz gives another grunt, but as he does so he blinks. Letting out a little exhale of relief at this small sign of life, Jemma turns for the stairs.

In the kitchen, she heats up Ollie’s bottle in the microwave and sits him in his highchair. When he notices the bottle heading his way, Ollie’s eyes light up and he pounds his tiny palms against his tray until she hands it to him. Sticking it in his mouth, he starts to drink greedily.

Despite her earlier sadness, Jemma finds herself smiling. Ollie could do that for her, cheer her up effortlessly in a way that only he and his father could. Nothing in the world is as precious to her as they are.

‘What have we got for you tonight, darling thing?’ she murmurs as she opens the fridge. She organises all Ollie’s meals a week in advance, so she knows exactly what nutrients he is getting on a daily basis. She and Fitz are also trying to broaden his palette, so each week includes a new food. This week, they are onto fish.

Taking the dish of cooked salmon out of the fridge, Jemma mashes the flakes with a fork until it is a puree. She dips Ollie’s spoon into the mixture and offers it to him, but the smell of the fish is so new to Ollie that he purses his lips tight and turns his face away.

‘Come on, Ollie,’ Jemma coaxes, ‘try a little.’

She rubs the pink puree against his lips but Ollie’s face screws tight and he lets out a pitiful cry, pushing her away. Jemma sets down the spoon in frustration. She knows that he will love it once he has tried it – her son is quite the foodie and has happily chowed down on every new food offered to him so far. He just has to be dramatic about it first.

‘I wonder where you’ve got that from, hmm?’ she says, wiping his gloopy chin with a cloth.

‘Got what?’

Fitz slopes into the kitchen uncertainly, as if he is still deciding whether or not he wants to be there. Jemma gives him a neutral smile, not wanting to frighten him off.

‘Oh, his killer good looks. Rakish charm. Magnetic charisma. Need I go on?’

‘Definitely not.’ Fitz comes to stand behind her. ‘I think we both know he got all those things from his mum.’

Jemma feels her face melt into a grin, the knots in her stomach unclenching, as Fitz squeezes her shoulder.

‘Want me to have a go?’

‘Please,’ she sighs, vacating the stool so he can sit by Ollie instead. ‘He’s not being very cooperative today.’

‘Well, that’s understandable. It’s been a bit of a disruptive day, hasn’t it, little man?’ Fitz takes the seat and lifts the spoon. ‘But let’s see if we can get a bit of this down you, hmm?’

Ollie gives another wail of protest as Fitz brings the spoon back to his lips, but Fitz is persistent. After a few minutes, Ollie takes a bit of the puree from the spoon. He smacks his lips experimentally, then opens his mouth for more, much to his parents’ relief.

‘There now,’ Fitz murmurs. ‘That’s the ticket.’

With one hand he continues to feed Ollie, but the other he holds out for Jemma. She moves to his side, allowing him to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her close. She rests her head on top of his and curls her fingers through his hair, watching it spring back into place when she lets go. Fitz heaves a heavy sigh.

‘Thank you.’

It is an unexpected sentiment and Jemma frowns with good humour.

‘For what? The spontaneous head massage?’

Fitz shakes his head. He doesn’t turn to look at her, still focused on feeding Ollie, but Jemma gets the feeling it’s for a different reason than when he’d avoided her gaze earlier.

‘I just don’t feel like I say it enough, you know? How grateful I am for you, and for Ollie. For our little family. You’re both so important to me and I…’ He gulps. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

There is a lump in Jemma’s throat as she presses her lips, hard, against his forehead. Tears blur her vision as she feels Fitz clutch her even tighter to him.

‘Well then,’ she says, once she can trust herself to speak again, ‘I suppose it’s just as well that you’ll never have to find out.’

Fitz nods, and Jemma feels him breathe out. He brings her clenched fist up to his lips to kiss the back of her hand just as he feeds Ollie his last spoonful of salmon.

‘All gone, little man,’ he says, when Ollie grabs for the bowl in a thinly-veiled request for more. ‘You ate it all up.’

‘What a clever boy,’ Jemma croons, stepping forward to lift their son out of the highchair.

She perches on the stool beside Fitz, balancing Ollie on her knee as she wipes the residual salmon from his chin and cheeks. He burbles to her as she does so, his baby sounds not quite words but trying very hard to be. Jemma mumbles back to him, knowing from her infant development books how important it is for him to feel like he is being heard. It is something that is important no matter how old you are.

When she looks up, she finds Fitz watching her with a gaze of such intensity that it makes her toes curl. Heat rises to her cheeks as she raises one eyebrow at him.

‘What?’

‘Hmm? Oh, nothing.’ Fitz gives a shrug. ‘I was just wondering…when did Skye give him back to you?’

Jemma wrinkles her nose and glances up at the clock: it is ten past seven. ‘Um, it must have been about half an hour ago now. Why do you ask?’

Fitz doesn’t answer her. Instead, he gives an exaggerated roll of his eyes and bends down. Jemma lets out a small squeak as he lifts her leg up to cradle her foot in his lap.

‘Fitz! What on earth are you doing?’

‘I lost the bet,’ he says by way of explanation.

Realisation dawns on Jemma as he unlaces her boot and drops it to the floor. Using his thumbs, he presses hard against the sole of her foot, where all the pressure and tension of the day has collected. It feels so good that Jemma almost moans out loud, and she has to lift Ollie higher up on her knee to stop him slipping off.

Over the top of their son’s head, she sees Fitz smile for the first time that afternoon.

‘So, do you want your foot rub or not?’

Fitz pads across the Bus floor, yawning. The plane is quiet at this time of night in a way that it never is during the day, the only sound being the gentle thrum of the engine beneath his feet. He has a sneaking suspicion that even May is asleep in the cockpit, the autopilot set to carry them all safely through until dawn.

Clutching his washbag under his arm, Fitz pauses outside the bunk next to the one he and Jemma share. A few weeks ago, they’d come to the decision to move Ollie out of their room and into one of his own. It had been difficult to start with, both of them having to sit on their hands as they listened to his indignant cries for attention, but slowly it was getting easier. Ollie was sleeping longer through the night, and Fitz had to admit that it was nice to have Jemma to himself again. It had been a long time since it had been just the two of them in the room.

Carefully, Fitz slides the bunk door open. Peering through the dark, he finds Ollie in his cot, fast asleep on his back with his mouth slightly parted. His chest rises and falls, his little fist twitching as though he is dreaming. A small smile creeps over Fitz’s face and, satisfied that the light on the baby monitor is blinking at him, he closes the door. With any luck, his son will sleep soundly until the morning. Given what Coulson had told them all that afternoon, he and Jemma were going to need all the sleep they could get.

Which is why he is surprised to see a light on underneath their bunk door. He’d been so long in the shower, soaking in the warmth of the water, that he’d assumed he’d return to find Jemma already half-asleep, a space left empty on the bed for him to crawl in beside her.

Instead, when he opens the door he finds his partner sat cross-legged on the floor. Her laptop is open in front of her and there are sheets of paper spread in a semi-circle around her, which Fitz can see are dotted with notations made in pencil. The pencil in question is pressed between Jemma’s lips in concentration, but she lifts it out when she notices him.

‘Oh, good, you’re back! You can help me.’

‘Um.’ Fitz closes the door behind him and steps gingerly over the papers. ‘Help you with what, exactly?’

‘My backstory,’ Jemma explains. ‘I don’t think it’s authentic enough.’

‘Your back…’

Glancing down, Fitz scans the first few lines of the Word document open on her screen. _Gap year. Unplanned pregnancy. Broken family. How rude can I realistically be to Agent Coulson? _He snorts.

‘Jemma, when May said to prepare for tomorrow’s mission, I think she meant getting an early night and a nutritious breakfast. Not indulge in a spot of creative writing.’

‘This _is_ preparation,’ Jemma insists. ‘Tomorrow is our first undercover assignment, Fitz. We’ve never done this before. I want to be sure of exactly what I’m doing and that requires knowing exactly who I _am_.’

Fitz shakes his head and lowers himself to sit beside her. ‘You have the smallest part to play, Jemma,’ he says. ‘All you have to do is spill Ollie’s formula milk and then bring him and yourself to meet Skye and me. Then we hang out in the closet until Ward comes to get us. I really don’t think it’s necessary for you to invent…’ He squints. ‘A one-night stand with an Italian gelatician? Seriously?’

‘Oh!’

Jemma rolls her eyes and swiftly shuts her laptop. As she pushes it away from her, Fitz notices with a start that her hands are shaking.

‘I’ve never been very good at pretending,’ she says quietly. ‘You know that. And this is an important mission. I don’t want something to go wrong because I wasn’t good enough.’

Inside his chest, Fitz feels his heart sink. Jemma is right: this is their first uncover operation. But, more than that, this is her first real field mission. He has been so focused on preparing the equipment he and Skye will need, and implanting the tracking compound in Ollie’s milk, that the thought of that had completely slipped his mind. Clearly though, it has been playing on Jemma’s more than she is likely to admit.

He slips out an arm, snaking it around her waist as an apology. He wonders if she might resist, but she gives in instantly, curling into his side and resting her head on his shoulder. The press of her temple against his neck is too tempting. Fitz turns his head to press a light kiss to her hairline, and is rewarded with a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

With his free hand, he lifts one of Jemma’s own and holds it in his lap.

‘Talk me through it, then.’

Jemma perks up a little, sitting forward to point out some of her research. Her character is a little younger than herself and had been travelling in Italy following her completion of her PhD – ‘Acquired during the more common state of academic progression,’ she clarifies, and Fitz, thinking of the three doctorates they had shared between them before the age of sixteen, nods sagely. During her time abroad, Jemma’s undercover persona had encountered a dashing gelateria owner, who had charmed her right into his bed with his prized gluten-free lemon sorbet. She had been half-way to Naples before realising she was pregnant.

‘Ollie will play the baby.’

Fitz grins. ‘Obviously.’

‘Our little star of the show.’

‘Oh, he’ll be a natural.’

‘Hmm.’ Jemma pauses, biting down on her lip. ‘Not if he takes after me, I’m afraid.’

Frowning a little, Fitz leans forward to cover her fisted fingers with his own. ‘Hey. Don’t be like that.’

Jemma shakes her head. When she looks up at him, Fitz is anguished to see tears shining in her eyes. ‘If something happens…’ she whispers.

‘If something happens,’ he interrupts firmly, ‘then it won’t be your fault.’ He gestures to the sheets of research around them, and the neatly typed paragraphs displayed on her laptop. ‘This backstory is solid, Jemma. Would fool any one of those batty examiners at the Academy.’

Jemma gives him a slight, watery smile. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Absolutely,’ Fitz says with conviction. ‘If you’d pulled this out during our assessment in ’09, you’d have been out in the field years ago and I’d still be sitting on my lonesome in the lab.’

With a snort of disbelief, Jemma turns to wrap her arms about his neck and presses a quick peck to his lips.

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she says softly. ‘I’d never have gone anywhere without you.’

There is a warmth in the pit of Fitz’s stomach as he kisses her back, cupping her cheek in his hand. It has been so many years since the first time he’d felt the movement of her lips against his own yet it still feels just as new. It is a newness he knows, one that takes him by surprise every time.

When the pace of their kisses starts to rise, Jemma shrugging off her cardigan and the belt of Fitz’s dressing gown slipping low, they struggle to their feet. Looping his arms around Jemma’s waist, Fitz leads her to the bed.

‘I do, however,’ he says, ‘have one suggestion for your backstory.’

‘Oh?’ Lying flat on her back, Jemma gazes up at him. Her eyes seem to glow, luminous in the lamp light. ‘And what might that be?’

‘Does he really have to be an Italian gelatician?’ Fitz ponders out loud. ‘I mean, what’s to stop a handsome Scotsman from opening up an ice cream shop in bella Italia?’

The sound of Jemma’s laughter so fills the tiny bunk that Fitz is sure it will wake the whole plane.

‘Oh, no,’ she says, ‘it has to be an Italian.’

Before he can protest, she slips her leg between his and turns them both over. Suddenly, it is Fitz who is on his back and soon she is kissing him so deeply that he forgets what he was offended by in the first place.

‘You ought to know,’ Jemma murmurs against his lips, ‘no self-respecting Scotsman would be caught _dead_ selling gluten-free gelato.’

Flipping open Ollie’s nappy bag, Jemma takes out a tin of formula milk to set on the table in front of her. She also takes the opportunity to slide a pair of tortoiseshell glasses onto her nose, completing her undercover look.

Across the train table from her, Coulson, wearing a matching set of glasses and holding Ollie on his lap, frowns.

‘Simmons, what are you doing?’

‘Preparing the scene, sir.’

Settling back in her seat, Jemma twists the lid of the formula milk so that it is balanced precariously on top of the tin. When Fitz had passed it to her this morning, he’d let his hands linger just longer than necessary over her wrists. The slight touch had given her the bravery she needed to step onto the train.

Taking a deep breath, she explains to Coulson. ‘My undercover persona got into some, um, _trouble_, whilst back-packing in Italy and was left a single mother. Her father is American – that’s you, sir – and was absent for a lot of her childhood. Her residual resentment about this is unfortunately coming to the surface now he has come to bring her and her half-Italian son home.’ She gives Coulson an apologetic look. ‘I may come off a little cold.’

She had been a little worried that her senior officer would laugh at her backstory. It _is_ overly elaborate – despite Fitz’s assurances, she knows that she didn’t really need so much detail. But she wants it, in order to feel secure in her role within the team. She doesn’t want to let them down.

Luckily, Coulson doesn’t even bat an eyelid, which makes her feel a wave of fondness for him.

‘Understood. But half-Italian?’ Coulson raises an eyebrow and glances down to where he is bouncing Ollie on his knee. Jemma knows what he means: her and Fitz’s son truly does have the purest, pastiest baby skin under the sun. ‘Did Fitz okay this backstory?’

‘He might have taken a little convincing,’ Jemma admits. ‘But, after we’d rehearsed it a few times together, he started seeing it my way.’ Her cheeks warm pleasantly at the memory of the night before. ‘And besides, that’s all it is. A story.’

She holds out her hands, and Coulson passes Ollie to her. Seeing the tin of milk out on the table, he licks his lips, and Jemma quickly runs her finger underneath his chin to catch his drool before it drops onto his t-shirt.

She is glad that she hasn’t had to be completely honest with Coulson. Confessing to the way her stomach is already churning at the thought of the day to come would have been rather embarrassing. It would have been even more embarrassing though to admit that she needed the backstory, with all its elaborate and unnecessary details, to keep her emotions in check, however insignificant her part might be. By pretending to be somebody else, she would be able to channel those nerves into being the most convincing character she could.

It is a relief that she hasn’t had to explain all this, but she can’t help wishing it was Fitz here with her instead.

At least she has the next best thing.

‘_Hey_,’ she hears his voice say softly, the small headset tucked neatly inside her ear connecting them across the train carriages, ‘_the target’s headed your way_.’

Jemma sucks in a breath, feeling her heartrate increase. For a moment, she freezes, everything that she had planned to do and say vanishing from her mind.

‘_Jemma_?’ Fitz says. ‘_I love you. And you’re going to do great_.’

And, just as fast as she had forgotten, Jemma knows precisely what her next move is. She meets Coulson’s eye across the table and sees him raise one eyebrow at her. Behind him, two men in dark suits are prowling down the middle of the carriage behind them. _Showtime._

Taking a deep breath, Jemma squares her shoulders, settles Ollie on her lap and raises her voice so that it will carry past their seats and grab others’ attention.

‘I never asked you to come and rescue me! Xavier and I were perfectly happy building our lives together in our crumbling villa among the lemon groves in Positano!’

Coulson starts at the shrill tone of her voice, and even Ollie, along with most of the passengers in their carriage, twists his head up in surprise to stare at her. There is a sudden rush of adrenaline in Jemma’s veins at the attention her performance is grabbing. It is a little like coming to the climax of an experiment, she thinks fleetingly, the moment when all the preparation begins to pay off.

‘But _no_,’ she continues, screwing her face up in forced anguish. ‘That wouldn’t be good enough for you, would it? You, for whom nothing Mum or I did was ever satisfactory! You couldn’t have a daughter and an illegitimate grandson living somewhere off the Amalfi coast! You simply had to swoop in to control our lives.’

Hoisting Ollie up onto the train table so he could be seen by everyone, Jemma glowers at Coulson, who is looking more uncomfortable by the minute. She feels a little guilty about this, although she had tried to warn him.

‘Is it any wonder that when I was offered the affection I was denied as a child I took it? In the arms of a sensitive, Italian lover? You never had any time for me, but you always made time for your work! And your prostitutes!’

Coulson’s eyebrows shoot up. If he had been wearing a string of pearls, he probably would have clutched at them. Out of the corner of her eye, Jemma notices that the suited men have reached their carriage and are approaching her and Coulson’s seats. Recognising this as her cue, she gets tearfully to her feet and sits Ollie on her hip.

‘Well, I will learn from your mistakes!’ she declares. ‘And Xavier will never feel the neglect that I did!’

Ducking her head down, she steps out of her seat at exactly the right moment to collide with the first man. As she does so, her free hand sweeps the tin of formula milk off the table, and the lid springs off, covering the men’s suits with the filmy white powder and spilling the rest of the contains onto the floor.

‘Oh!’ Jumping to one side, Jemma can’t help but pull Ollie back, placing him as far away from the men as she can get him. ‘Oh…oh, no, I’m so sorry…’

The men don’t appear to speak any English, or have any concerns about the powder they have to step through to continue on their walk through the carriage. As she and Coulson crouch down to give the appearance of cleaning up the formula from the floor, Jemma turns her head to watch them leave the compartment.

She allows herself a secret smirk to see that the soles of their shoes are covered with the white powder, and the fluorescent tracking compound hidden within.

‘Xavier?’ Coulson murmurs to her. ‘Really?’

It is not often that Fitz regrets making out with Jemma.

These days, it is too infrequent an occurrence for him to regret any time they are able to spend with their lips on each other’s and their hands wandering into places of pleasure. More often than not, he finds himself regretting any spare time he has spent _not_ making out with her.

But right now, Fitz finds himself in the unfamiliar position of wishing they hadn’t spent so much time with their bodies intertwined last night. Maybe if he’d had just a few more minutes of rest he’d be able to fight off this man in a dark suit with a little more grace.

Things have gone wrong fast, way too fast.

One minute, Fitz had been sitting with Skye in the luggage car, realising that their teams’ comms had gone dark because Cybertek knew they were there. The next, a man in a dark suit is bursting in on them, brandishing what looks like a bomb. Fitz hasn’t the time to think before he is lunging for the guy.

Using the very little combat knowledge he has, he manages to wrestle him to the floor, aiming a kick at his knee but missing and hitting a wood crate instead. He hears Skye shout behind him and then there is a searing pain to the back of his head and the floor of the train is pressed against his nose.

Fitz gasps, and tries to struggle to his feet, but the ringing in his ears and panic swirling in his gut are making it difficult for him to maintain his balance. In another moment, Skye lands beside him with a grunt and he is sure that it is all over.

But then the car door opens and, above the thud of his heart, Fitz hears Jemma’s voice.

The agent turns towards her, and Fitz sees Jemma’s eyes widen as she takes in the scene, he and Skye on the floor, and the hand grenade right in front of her.

He realises what she is going to do a moment too late. A surge of fear lifts him to his feet, grabbing the nearest crate for balance as he tries to lurch forward to stop her.

‘_Jemma!_’

He isn’t quick enough. Jemma steps forward to pull the agent against her, trapping the grenade between their bodies before it explodes.

There is a pulse of blue light, and then they are both on the floor.

For one, horrible moment, Fitz can’t breathe. The room spins, the ringing in his ears growing louder and louder, as he is transported back to the open cargo hold of the Bus and the limitless sky beneath him where he can no longer see her falling. It freezes him, just like the chill of the wind that had whipped at her hair.

Beside him, Skye scrambles to her feet. She hurries over to pull Jemma away from their attacker and presses two fingers to her throat, her forehead marked with a deeply worried crease. In the few moments it takes for her to reach her verdict, Fitz feels like the whole world is hanging in the balance.

Skye looks up at him, her words falling out in a rush. ‘She’s okay.’

The relief is almost as dizzying as the fear had been. Fitz doubles over with the weight of it, his stomach still rolling with a sick feeling that has threatened to turn him inside out. He staggers forward. Falling to his knees beside Jemma, he carefully lifts her head to rest it on his lap, feeling a desperate need to touch her, to hold her, to reassure himself that she’s alright.

Even if she is, the sight of her is still rather unsettling. Her eyes are wide open, with something glowing and eerie blue underneath the thin skin of her cheeks. The substance vanishes as he slides his fingers through the tangles in her hear, clearly being absorbing into her bloodstream. Her limbs are heavy, but not floppy the way they were when she was naturally asleep, which gives Fitz a clue as to what happened.

‘I think this is some form of dendrotoxin,’ he mutters, only half to Skye as he carefully shuts Jemma’s eyes. Her eyelids are still warm underneath his touch.

Skye’s nose wrinkles. ‘The same stuff that’s in the night-night gun?’

‘Yeah. It’s clearly been developed – advanced you might say – but I think…’

Fitz breaks off as a thought occurs to him. He looks up, locking eyes with Skye.

‘Where’s Ollie?’

Fear spreads across Skye’s face and she gulps, before jumping to her feet and running for the door. The nausea returns to Fitz’s stomach, cold and heartless, as for a moment he is alone with his worst nightmares.

‘He’s here!’

His head shoots up at the sound of Skye’s triumphant cry. He hears her footsteps and then she is wheeling Ollie’s pushchair into the car in front of her. Sitting up in the buggy is his son, thumping indignantly on his guardrail and grizzling at being forgotten for so long.

Immediately, Fitz is reaching forward to take him out.

‘He was just down the corridor,’ Skye says, as his fingers fumble with the pushchair’s buckles. ‘Jemma must have heard the commotion and parked him there until she knew it was safe.’

Fitz doesn’t answer her. Instead, he lifts Ollie out of the chair and holds him tightly to his chest, despite his son’s sulky resistance. He closes his eyes and waits until Ollie surrenders, slumping against his shoulder and wiping his nose against Fitz’s jacket. When he feels Ollie’s tiny fist clutch at the material, Fitz thinks that he might be about to cry.

So close. He had come so close to losing both of them, _again_.

It is a little while before Skye speaks again, and when she does her voice is soft, like she is trying to coax an injured animal out of hiding.

‘Fitz? Are you okay?’

It is a fairly redundant question but she is trying to be kind. With his eyes still closed, Fitz nods.

Skye sighs. ‘Look, I know that you don’t want to, but we’ve got to get out of here. We need to find the others and figure out what to do next.’

Fitz grits his teeth. Of course they do. They can’t just wait here until Jemma wakes up. It could be hours, or even _days_, before that happens with this kind of dose of dendrotoxin. Their team will need he and Skye long before then. As much as he might not want to leave her side, Fitz knows that he has to. Of course, that does not mean that he has to like it.

‘Fine,’ he says, sharply enough for him to regret it as soon as the word has left his lips.

Opening his eyes, he finds Skye giving him an admonishing look, which only increases his guilt. There is only the two of them right now – three if you included Ollie – and they need each other to fix this mission. If Jemma were here, she’d tell him that snapping at her certainly wasn’t going to help.

_If Jemma were here_…

Swallowing hard, Fitz looks down at her. Now that the blue substance has faded, she looks serene, her features smoothed like pale marble. Bending his head, Fitz kisses her lightly on the lips and is satisfied to find that they too have retained some warmth. He straightens up.

‘Um,’ he says to Skye. ‘Would you mind holding Ollie for a moment? I want to move her first. I can’t…’ For a moment, Fitz can’t find the words. ‘I can’t just leave her. Not like this.’

Fortunately, Skye seems to understand. ‘Sure,’ she says quietly. ‘Whatever you need.’

Slipping one arm underneath Jemma’s shoulders and the other behind her knees, Fitz lifts her into a safer position, away from view of the door. Skye pulls a blanket on top of her and Fitz tucks his spare night-night pistol into her hand, along with one of Ollie’s socks. That way, if she woke up before they came back for her, she’d know he was safe.

Once they have finished, Skye turns to the unconscious agent they have left on the ground with distain. Balancing Ollie on her hip, she points.

‘What about him?’

Fitz looks up, feeling a surprising surge of anger deep in his gut as he takes in the face of the man who had knocked out his best friend, the mother of his child.

Feeling the weight of the remaining night-night gun in his hand, and eying an empty wooden crate at the back of the luggage car, Fitz experiences an unexpected flicker of satisfaction as he realises exactly what he wants to do with him.

‘Excuse me.’

Her voice sounds so small in the cargo hold, a place that feels cavernous at the best of times. Now though, now that it is a place where life itself is at risk, it feels so much bigger and Jemma’s words fail to carry.

Not that the rest of her team are listening to her anyway. They are all just as shell-shocked as she is, staring numbly at Skye’s body, held in the precious hyperbaric chamber they are all praying will save her life.

Jemma steps back, one hand trailing all the way down the glass case, and leaves the room.

Her feet wobble uncertainly as she walks across the lab towards their supply closet. On her hip, Ollie is uncharacteristically quiet, his fist rammed in his mouth as a makeshift dummy. Jemma wonders what from today his small mind has been able to process. Try as she might, she can’t summon up an infant cognition study from her memory to focus on. Her head is stuck, back in the basement of Quinn’s mansion where it was her responsibility to keep Skye alive.

The frantic rush back to the Bus had passed by in a blur. Jemma had kept one hand inside the chamber at all times, checking Skye’s vitals and reassuring herself that there was still a pulse there, however faint it might be. It had only been once they were back in the Bus’ hanger, unable to do anything more to help her before they reached a SHIELD medical facility, that Jemma had turned to take Ollie from Fitz’s aching arms and noticed the bloodstains running all the way to her elbows. It had shocked her, and driven home the reality of what had just happened.

One of their own, shot. One of their own, on the brink of being lost forever.

The door to the supply room slams shut behind her, sending a shudder down Jemma’s spine. She sets Ollie down in the playpen they kept there for him, complete with crinkly felt stars, brightly coloured letter blocks, and shiny mirrors to stimulate his perception. He grizzles a little bit and clings to her shoulder, unwilling to be put down again after such an unsettled day. Shushing him gently, Jemma offers him his favourite toy monkey as a substitute. Ollie takes it, and immediately sticks the tail in his mouth to chew.

As Jemma draws her fingers back through his hair, she leaves a few flecks of dried blood on his temple and her stomach rolls.

Stumbling to her feet, she pulls open a cupboard drawer to search for something to clean the blood off her hands. Ideally, she wants an antiseptic wipe, but the first thing she comes to is a bag of cotton buds and Jemma is so desperate to get it _off_ that she rips it open instead.

The cotton does very little to remove the blood, and as it starts to disintegrate under her fingers Jemma feels tears start to prick at the back of her throat.

She remembers how she’d felt the night before, how she’d been so worried about playing her part right. Her primary concern then had been that she would make a mistake and the failure of the mission would be all on her. Now, all she can think about is how if she hasn’t done enough to keep Skye alive it still will be.

She doesn’t hear Fitz enter the closet behind her. Maybe the cavernous feeling of the cargo hold has spread to the whole Bus, the plane too big and too quiet for just the six of them. But as soon as Fitz’s hand touches her shoulder, gentle, quiet, and unassuming, Jemma feels everything shift back into proportion.

Her breathing hitches, but something about it feels like a release. Her feet move of their own accord, turning her around so that she and Fitz are face to face. His hair is rumpled and his face is drawn. Jemma knows him well enough to know that he is aching with regret for letting Skye go after Quinn alone.

In spite of this though, the look in his eyes is open, offering her the comfort she so sorely needs right now. She loves him for it in a way that would be impossible to put into words.

With a stifled sob, Jemma walks into his arms. Letting her head fall to his chest, she tries to keep her hands away from him, not wanting to stain yet another person with Skye’s blood. But Fitz holds her steady, pressing his nose against her cheek and folding himself around her like a human shield.

_It isn’t your fault_, his arms say.

_We’re in this, together._

Jemma’s tears start to fall in earnest then as she clings to him the same way Ollie had clung to her: desperate for comfort from the only person she’d ever felt safe enough to fall apart with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No matter where we end up, I’ll be okay.’ He nods downwards to Ollie, drifting into sleep against his chest. ‘Just as long as I always have the two of you.’  
Jemma tilts her head to one side, her eyes softening. She takes a step closer to him and lifts herself up onto her tiptoes to rub her nose against his own. Her skin is freezing cold and Fitz’s nose is so numb that he can hardly feel it, but it makes him smile anyway.  
‘Wild polar bears,’ Jemma declares, ‘couldn’t tear us away from you.’  
When they kiss, cold cheeks pressed tight and snowflakes gathering on their eyelashes, it feels stabilising. It feels like a promise of shared strength and a determination to stick together until the very end."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i truly didn't mean to leave this so long before uploading! thank you to those whose comments jogged my memory and reminded me to post! i hope this chapter makes up for the rather long wait.
> 
> the ending of this fic was what made me step back from it for such a long time. i didn't want to write the ending i had planned and it took me stupidly long to realise that if i didn't like it then i didn't have to write it. now, i'm happy with the way that it ends, and i hope you are too. thank you for reading!

When he sees Jemma walking towards him down the Bus’s corridor, Fitz’s heart leaps inside his chest. It would be embarrassing if he didn’t love her as much as he does.

Over the last week they’d seen each other so infrequently that any opportunity to talk had become something to treasure. Fitz has to smile as he sees Jemma’s eyes light up too as she hurries forward to meet him halfway.

‘Hey,’ he grins, as she reaches up on tiptoes to kiss him. The minty taste left on her lips tells him she has just left the bathroom.

Jemma returns the smile as she slides back to the ground. ‘Hey, yourself.’

Up close, she looks very tired, with deep grooves under her eyes a pale shade of purple. Fitz feels a flicker of concern but he also knows that he probably looks just as tired. He decides that it would not be politic to point it out and so bends his head to kiss her again instead.

Jemma grins against his lips. When they pull apart, she takes the opportunity to tug down his rumpled shirt and straighten his collar, brushing breakfast crumbs from his tie.

‘How’s Ollie?’ she asks.

For the past two days, their son had been running a high temperature and stubbornly refusing anything they tried to coax him into eating. Coulson had managed to set them up a Skype call with a paediatrician, who had assured them that it wasn’t anything serious, and to try and keep him cool and hydrated. Fitz has spent most of last night flat out on the couch with Ollie on his chest, rubbing a cool flannel down his back.

‘I think his temperature is finally going down,’ he tells her, and grimaces as he sees her shoulders sag with relief. ‘That’s the good news, mind. The bad news is that he’s starting to sniffle a little bit now.’

Jemma groans. The last time Ollie had gotten a cold it had spread across the team like a forest fire until even May had been forced to retreat to her bunk, pull down the blinds and put a note on her door threatening anyone who might be tempted to disturb her. With everything going with Ian Quinn and the Clairvoyant, Fitz knows that they can’t afford for that to happen again.

‘I’ll just disinfect my hands,’ Jemma decides, ‘and then go up and see him. Are you okay to swap duties for a while?’

Fitz nods, having forgotten only momentarily that his son was not the only patient currently demanding Jemma’s attention.

‘How’s Skye doing?’

‘Good.’ A small smile lights up Jemma’s face. ‘_Really_ good, actually. The GH-235 is repairing her body at a rate that’s barely human, and she’s acting more and more like herself every hour. I’m so relieved she’s awake again…’

She trails off unexpectedly and leans back against the wall with a sigh. Fitz raises an eyebrow.

‘But?’

Jemma shoots him a look out of the corner of her eye. ‘What makes you think that there’s a _but_?’

Sticking his hands in his pockets, Fitz leans next to her and nudges her shoulder. ‘Because I know _you_. What’s wrong? Is she a bad patient?’

Jemma groans again, and drops her head into her hands. ‘She’s a _terrible_ patient! Obviously I am thrilled she’s got all her energy back, but she keeps trying to get out of bed and do things when the doctors explicitly said bed rest for at least another week. And when she isn’t trying to get out of bed she’s reminding me how bored she is and wheedling me for her laptop.’

Fitz snorts at the mental image of Jemma trying to mother a grumpy, itchy Skye, and receives a thump to the arm for his trouble.

‘It’s not funny!’

‘You said yourself she’s doing bizarrely well,’ he protests. ‘Maybe the doctors didn’t take into account how fast her recovery time would be.’

‘Maybe.’ Jemma sighs. She tips her head back against the wall and screws her eyes shut. ‘It’s just…Fitz, we don’t know what this GH-235 is. We don’t know where it came from and I don’t have the equipment here to study it properly. The doctors released Skye into my care. If anything happened to her now because I wasn’t careful enough…’

‘Hey.’ Fitz takes her by the arm and gently turns her towards him. With his thumb, he brushes her cheekbone. ‘We’ve talked about this,’ he says softly. ‘You are being careful. You’re _always_ careful, Jemma.’

She nods, clearly unconvinced, and he runs his hands up her forearms in an attempt to comfort her.

‘I’m sure Skye knows her limits,’ he adds, ‘and what her strength is capable of. She’s not about to do anything stupid. She’s a grown woman, not a child.’

No sooner have the words left his mouth than a loud voice echoes down the corridor.

‘SimmONS? I HAVE TO PEE. AGAIN.’

Fitz gulps. Glancing over at Jemma, he sees that she has covered her mouth, and when she turns her head to look up at him, her eyes are sparkling again. That one look is enough to make him forget all about how tired he is and he grins, broadly.

‘Then again,’ he amends, cocking his head as he pretends to think, ‘did we have a second baby and nobody thought to tell me?’

Jemma chuckles, and reaches up to kiss his cheek.

‘Oh, I’m sure I’d have let you know eventually.’

The resurgence of Mike Peterson and the discovery of his links to the Clairvoyant changes everything, and it changes it fast.

John Garett reappears, bringing Agent Triplett with him, and Fitz has to flatten himself and Ollie to the Bus wall as the older agent strides past him on his way to Coulson’s office. Garrett throws him a companionable grimace and Ollie a miniature salute, but Fitz doesn’t have the time to respond to either before he is gone and they are alone in the corridor once more.

‘Things are getting busy around here again, little man,’ he murmurs to Ollie.

Ollie presses his lips together and blows a low raspberry, which Fitz decides about sums the situation up perfectly. There is a creeping uncertainty in his gut that no amount of indigestion tablets has been able to relieve.

Fitz carries Ollie through to the supply cupboard where Jemma is packing.

‘Do you reckon he’ll be walking on his own soon?’ he says, setting their son down on his still unsteady legs. Holding him by the hands, Fitz takes a step forward, chuckling as Ollie tries to pad after him, his belly puffed out.

‘Oh, Fitz! He’s not even ten months yet!’ Looking up from a shelf, Jemma shakes her head. She pauses for a moment before remarking, ‘give him another two weeks, at least.’

Grinning, Fitz bends down to scoop Ollie back up. His son shrieks with delight and makes a grab for his tie. Thankfully, after a few days of sniffling he hadn’t developed a cold, much to the relief of everyone on board. Between the arrival of two Asgardians on earth and the operation to stop the Clairvoyant, a sick baby had been the last thing any of them had needed.

‘Have you got everything?’ he asks.

‘I think so.’ Jemma tucks the last of the paperwork into a satchel and straightens up. ‘All I need is Ollie’s nappy bag from our bunk and I can pick that up before you all leave.’

Fitz nods, trying to ignore the knots of apprehension tightening in his stomach.

When Victoria Hand had requested that Jemma stayed at the Hub to debrief on the Deathlok project, he had felt a mixture of emotions. Partly, he was relieved. The Hub was far safer than where the rest of their team were heading, and if she and Ollie had to be anywhere he’d rather it was there.

But there was also a tiny selfish voice in the back of his mind whispering a wish for them to all stay together. The events of the last few months have made him feel constantly on edge, as if danger is always just around the corner. Privately, he knows he would feel better if he had them both always in his sights. And if that made him paranoid, well, then Fitz was proud to call himself so.

‘Honestly, I don’t know how much more you can tell them about the project,’ he mutters, retrieving his tie from Ollie’s greedy grasp. ‘With the way Skye described Mike…’ He shudders. ‘Who knows what they could have done to him?’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘It’s sickening, she says quietly, ‘but SHIELD sees us as experts on the Deathlok program. If they want me to stay at the Hub, then that’s that.’

Casually, almost inconspicuously, she sweeps a tiny vial into her satchel next to the paperwork.

Fitz raises one eyebrow and turns to Ollie. ‘Well, doesn’t Mummy seem awfully chipper to pick you up and leave me on my lonesome?’ Jemma rolls her eyes and steps forward to take his arm, but he stops her with a knowing look. ‘Could it be because the Hub's lab facilities are much more comprehensive than ours?’

‘In case I'd like to run a molecular breakdown of Skye's blood? Why, yes.’ With a conspiratorial smile, she reaches up and kisses the tip of his nose. ‘Brilliant deduction, Dr. Watson.’

Fitz screws up his face as she takes Ollie from him and settles him on her hip.

‘You know,’ he says, ‘I’ve always pictured you as Watson.’

Jemma fixes him with a _don’t be so ridiculous_ look and shoulders her bag.

Hiding a smile, Fitz steps forward to take it from her, both to relieve her and as an excuse to lean in close. He clears his throat, ready to broach the subject he’d sought her out to discuss in the first place.

‘I’m going to set up an encrypted hard line from the Hub lab to the Bus,’ he murmurs.

Jemma nods thoughtfully. ‘That sounds practical.’

‘Yeah.’ Feeling rather proud of his forward thinking, Fitz straightens his back. ‘This way, we’ll be able stay in touch privately while you’re there. Don’t want the whole Bus hearing what you’re saying, now, do we?’

‘Don’t we?’ Jemma’s eyes are dancing. ‘Why, Dr. Fitz, what do you imagine I might be saying?’

Fitz is just starting to feel a little hot under the collar, a dozen sweet nothings that she could whisper to him springing to mind, all of them too unsavoury for his young son’s ears, when he hears footsteps coming down the corridor. He and Jemma spin around just in time to see Antoine Triplett, Garett’s partner, step through the doorway. He nods at Jemma with a little smile.

‘You ready to go?’

Fitz eyes him suspiciously. He hasn’t spent much time with Triplett yet, and recent events had forced him to be more wary of his fellow agents – especially ones about to spend time alone with his family.

‘Are you staying at the Hub too?’ he asks.

Triplett nods again. ‘Garrett's keeping me here, to help brief the teams on our most recent run-in with the cyber soldier.’ He turns again to Jemma. ‘That’s if you don’t mind the company?’

‘No,’ Jemma says, and Fitz feels a seed of jealously bloom as she gives him her most charming smile. ‘Not at all.’

But when Triplett turns to leave and she steps into his arms to kiss him goodbye, her teeth graze across his bottom lip in a way that sends hot shivers running down his spine and soon Fitz has forgotten all about being jealous.

The gunshot rings out across the situation room, making Jemma jump.

In her arms Ollie shudders too, and his lips pucker as he prepares to cry. Hastily, Jemma hushes him, bouncing him on her hip as she strains to hear what is happening.

The video feed up on the wall had been following an agent’s chest cam, showing them exactly what he saw as Coulson’s team tracked the Clairvoyant through the abandoned building. Jemma had been craning her neck, so busy trying to distinguish Fitz amongst the other agents in the team that she hadn’t been paying attention to what Thomas Nash’s computer had been saying. Now, she feels her mouth fill with bile as she takes in the bullet wound seeping blood in his chest.

With her heart in her throat, she breathes out her question. ‘Did Ward just…’

Beside her, Victoria Hand gives a tiny shake of the head, and lifts up her hand for silence. Pursing her lips together, Jemma turns to Agent Triplett, and the two of them exchange a tense glance.

‘_He’s dead_,’ Agent Garett’s voice echoes through the room. ‘_It’s over_.’

All of a sudden, it feels as if all the air has been let out of the room. Agents begin to murmur, and one junior in the corner whoops inappropriately.

Jemma feels a wave of relief crash over her, and she clutches Ollie even tighter to her chest.

‘It’s over, little man,’ she repeats to him, and kisses the top of his head. ‘All over.’

If he’d been able to ask her what _it_ was, however, Jemma would have found it hard to respond.

Ollie huffs, and grips onto her shirt collar. Lifting her head, Jemma scans the video feed once more, trying to distinguish Fitz’s features among the other agents’. She sees Coulson, and Ward being led away with his hands behind his back, and her brow furrows. She can’t make out Fitz anywhere.

As the agents in the situation room being to disperse, so does Jemma’s disappointment when she remembers the encrypted hard-line Fitz had set up for them to use. Since she is not able to see him on the screen maybe that means he is already back at the Bus, waiting for her to call.

‘Agent Hand?’ she says, her voice rising a few octaves above normal. ‘Is it, um, alright if I’m excused? Ollie’s ready for his supper.’

Hand doesn’t even look at her, just nods her head with a wave of her fingers in dismissal as she continues to talk with Triplett. Swallowing back her annoyance at being disregarded so quickly, as if her motherhood was an impairment to her competency as an agent, Jemma slips away.

The lab is deserted as she picks up the phone, listening to the dial tone anxiously. On the bench beside her, Ollie is picking spaghetti hoops out of a bowl and plastering them on his face.

When the line clicks, Jemma’s heart lifts.

‘Fitz?’

‘_Don’t use my name, Jemma!_’

She is so relieved to hear his voice that she doesn’t even point out that _he_ had just used _hers_.

‘I thought you said you were going to use an encrypted hard line!’ she says, picking a hoop out of Ollie’s hair. There is a smear of tomato sauce on his curls. ‘No one should be able to hear us anyway.’

Fitz’s words crackle like they are full of static. ‘_You're cutting in and out. Hold on_.’

‘We saw the mission on the video,’ Jemma says, twirling the phone cord around her finger. ‘What really happened there? And what did Ward _do_?’

‘_Yeah, he took us all by surprise_,’ Fitz mutters, his last word cutting off with a crack. ‘_Look, keep talking, okay? I’m going to see if I can clear it up_.’

Glancing up, Jemma watches as a troop of armed agents march past the empty lab. For some reason, the sight of their guns and determined manner unnerve her.

‘So, you’ve got no idea how long you’re going to be? I miss you, and there’s been a great deal of commotion on this end.’

In truth, she can’t wait to get back on the Bus and put Ollie down in his cot for the night. She wants to crawl into bed beside Fitz and forget all the horrific events of the last few weeks. For Jemma, the Bus couldn’t get back to the Hub fast enough.

‘_Jemma, I miss you too. Ah!_’ Fitz’s voice rings out triumphant. ‘_Hang on, now. I think I've found the problem, it looks like someone else is tapping the hard line_.’

A clattering of footsteps outside the lab draws Jemma’s attention back to the door, and her eyes widen at the sight of more agents, this time in full body armour, running down the hallway. From the lab next door, someone yells.

‘Fitz,’ she says evenly. ‘I think something is happening.’

‘_What?_’

Jemma’s heart is pounding as she reaches for Ollie. She lifts him into her arms despite his resistance, and doesn’t even flinch as the pot of spaghetti hoops tumbles to the floor.

_‘Jemma?’_

‘There's agents rushing to the situation room,’ she whispers, tomato sauce bleeding into her socks. ‘Everyone’s holding guns and I think I heard someone scream. Fitz…’

There is a high-pitched buzzing and the line goes dead. Pulling the receiver from her ear, Jemma blinks at it as though it might suddenly reconnect.

‘Fitz?’

But he is gone. Fear curl inside Jemma’s chest, as low and worrying as Ollie’s grizzling now that his dinner is upset on the floor. Gazing around her at the dark and empty lab, she suddenly feels terribly alone.

‘Can I ask the obvious question?’ John Garrett is out of breath as he storms into the main body of the Bus. His eyes are blazing as he sets his hands on his hips. ‘What the _hell_?’

With his blood still pounding in his temples, Fitz has to admit that he feels the same way.

Within hours, everything seems to have gone wrong. He has lost the only form of contact he had with Jemma and Ollie, May has turned out to be a secret informant, and they have lost control of their plane only for it to nearly be shot out of the sky. It feels, Fitz thinks, like the world has been turned upside down.

‘I saw your trajectory.’ Garrett fixes Coulson with a cold grimace. ‘You’re being tractor-beamed straight to the Hub…’

Fitz barely hears him, nor does he pay much attention to his and Coulson’s argument about Victoria Hand. He is too busy connecting wires in his brain, his fingers twitching in front of him, as he tries to figure out a way to over-ride the noise on the encrypted line. Something had been happening at the Hub, something that had caused Jemma to raise the pitch of her voice in alarm. Someone, she’d said, had screamed. It had made his mouth run dry.

If only there was a way for him to get a message through to her, even if it was just to ask if she was alright.

‘Guys.’

Skye’s voice cuts dangerously through the room, demanding their attention, and Fitz looks up at her. Along with Coulson and Garett, he follows her gaze, and the index finger she is pointing, towards the screen in the control room.

The jumble of letters and numbers displayed on the screen had appeared shortly after they’d lost manual control of the Bus. Since then, they’d been shifting and changing like the symbols on fruit machines, never staying at one long enough to focus on it. But now, in front of Fitz’s eyes, they rearrange themselves to spell out a phrase.

‘”Out of the shadows”,’ Coulson reads it aloud, ‘”into the light”.’

The words sound vaguely familiar to Fitz, and he tries to remember where he has heard them before.

But, almost as soon as the phrase has appeared on the screen, it flits away again and another word starts to form from the same fruit machine symbols. As the letters fall into place, Fitz inches closer to Skye, who is holding her breath beside him. He is trembling, and he doesn’t quite know why.

The letters stop flickering, and the word left on the screen is _HYDRA_.

The name sends a shiver down Fitz’s spine and for a moment he can only stare, along with his team, at the menacing letters as if they might rearrange themselves again and spell out a different truth.

Seconds pass, and the letters stay the same.

‘I thought HYDRA was defeated after World War II.’ It is Fitz who breaks the deafening silence in the tiny control room.

He remembers now why the phrase had sounded so familiar. Back in their Academy dorms, Jemma had read aloud to him from her _History of SHIELD_ textbook. He must have subconsciously absorbed the phrase whilst pretending to listen to her chatter on about the terrorist organisation. Staring their name in the face, Fitz is starting to wish he’d paid a lot more attention.

‘It was. SHIELD was founded in the wake of that victory.’

Coulson starts to pace across the floor, his face pale and taunt. It unnerves Fitz slightly, to see the leader of their team so stunned.

‘And now they’re back?’ he clarifies.

‘HYDRA always comes back,’ Garett mutters.

‘Cut off a head,’ Coulson quips, ‘two more will take its place.’

Garett pauses, and frowns before saying, ‘is it a head? I thought it was a limb?’

‘No, no.’ Fitz shakes his head, remembering a Disney cartoon he’d watched with Ollie a few weeks before. With retrospect, the animated action sequence suddenly feels like a horrifying portent. ‘I’m pretty sure it was a head…’

‘But the message was sent from a SHIELD source,’ Skye cuts in.

She moves around the holotable and into the living area, arms folded over her middle. Fitz follows her. Behind him, their superior officers fall into step.

‘It’s got to be some sort of activation signal, to HYDRA members _within_ SHIELD.’

Fitz pulls a face, starting to feel slightly dizzy. His head is spinning enough as it is, he hardly needs conspiratorial theories about his superiors added to the mix. HYDRA inside SHIELD. Infiltrating it from the inside out, like a virus. Or a parasite. Something that fed off something good and healthy until it had sucked all the life out of it.

A flurry of faces, faces he’s known for the last decade, passes before Fitz’s eyes. Cadets he’d met at the academy. Lab techs at Sci-Ops. Agents on routine missions. Any one of them could have been working for the enemy the whole time and he would have had no idea. It feels like someone has pulled the floor out from underneath him, and he is free falling.

‘We’re screwed,’ Garett says.

‘We can’t change course,’ Coulson summarises, ‘and we have no idea what’s waiting for us at the Hub.’

‘The Hub,’ Fitz repeats the word vacantly, and suddenly a wave of dizziness overcomes him and he thinks he might black out.

He thinks back to a few hours ago, when he’d stood with Jemma on the Bus’ loading bay. She’d had to run back to their bunk for Ollie’s nappy bag, and when she’d returned to scoop him from Fitz’s arms, her cheeks had been flushed pink. He’d teased her for forgetting the bag and she’d laughed, reaching onto her tiptoes to kiss him one last time.

And then she’d walked off the plane, and he’d left her and Ollie there alone. At the Hub.

At the time, he’d been relieved, thinking they were in the safest place within SHIELD. But apparently he’d been mistaken. The two people he loved more than anything in the world were trapped in the very heart of HYDRA, and he’d been the one to leave them there.

Slowly, Fitz raises his head.

‘Simmons is at the Hub. She’s there with Ollie,’ he says, forcing his voice to remain steady and loud. ‘We have to save them.’

Jemma would have admitted to being scared earlier, would have been willing to confess that Agent Weaver’s hologram had alarmed her. _Don’t trust anyone_, her former mentor had warned, before her signal had flickered out just as Fitz’s had done before her. She’d left Jemma alone too, feeling even more in the dark than she had before. Agent Weaver’s words had made her clutch Ollie even tighter to her chest, holding him so close he could probably hear the frantic beating of her heart underneath her shirt.

But now, as she clutches him to her again, unable even to hold her hands up in surrender, Jemma realises she has moved past being just scared. Watching Agent Triplett hold a knife to a HYDRA agent’s throat as Victoria Hand stares on, all three of their lives resting in the balance, she has never been so terrified in all her life.

‘Cross us off,’ Trip warns, flexing the knife against the agent’s skin, ‘and one of you goes too.’

Jemma’s gaze flicks to Agent Hand and the calculating, considered look on her face, and realises that she is holding her breath.

Then, all of a sudden, Hand’s expression breaks and she smiles.

‘Right answer.’ She turns to the agent by her side. ‘The number of people I trust is now seven. Plus a baby, so I guess that makes it seven and a half. Since we’re counting.’ She sighs, and pats her blazer down. ‘Where are we on the roundup?’

Jemma blinks, for once unable to comprehend what had just happened in front of her. Across the room, she meets Trip’s eye and finds that they are both thinking the same thing: _what the hell just happened_?

By the time Hand turns back to them, motioning for Trip to release her agent, Jemma has found her tongue again.

‘That was, what? A test?’ she asks hoarsely, shifting Ollie’s weight on her hip.

Hand nods, a slight incline of her head. ‘One that very few have passed.’

Jemma exhales, and her breath ruffles Ollie’s tawny head. He sneezes and buries his face in her shoulder.

‘You’re not HYDRA,’ she confirms, and feels the corners of her mouth twitch, wanting to smile with relief. ‘Thank God.’

Neither she, nor Ollie, is going to die here. They can walk out of this room, maybe even out of this building, and once more there is hope in Jemma’s heart that they will see Fitz again.

The immediate relief makes her feel light-headed, and she sinks down onto a nearby stool. On her lap, Ollie struggles to his unsteady feet and she presses giddy kisses to his forehead. Agent Triplett has made his way back to her side and they exchange exhausted half-smiles that repeat her sentiment.

‘Well, don’t celebrate just yet,’ Agent Hand tells them. She nods to her guard. ‘_We_ might not be HYDRA. But your friend Coulson…he is.’

For a few seconds, all Jemma can do is gape at her. She waits for Hand to correct herself, for her words to be rearranged into a more plausible statement. When she doesn’t, Jemma shakes her head.

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

Hand opens her mouth, but before she can say anything an agent appears in the doorway and beckons to her.

‘Follow me back to the situation room,’ Hand instructs over her shoulder, already half-way out the door. Her legs are long, and Jemma has to hop off the stool quickly to keep up with her. ‘I’ll explain there.’

With Trip hot on her heels, Jemma follows Victoria Hand’s retreating figure back to the situation room.

‘Did she just say,’ Trip murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear, ‘that Agent Coulson is HYDRA?’

Jemma shakes her head again.

‘It’s a mistake. It had to be a mistake.’

In front of them, Victoria Hand has disappeared into the situation room and Jemma passes Ollie to Trip and hurries ahead, hoping to catch up with her.

On the screen is a diagram of the Bus, mapping out the rooms and walkways she has come to know so well. The details at the side of the screen tell Jemma that the plane has been docked in the Hub’s loading bay.

Hand is staring up at it, her arms crossed over her chest.

‘We should have blown that plane out of the sky.’

‘Are you mad?’ Jemma explodes. She steps in front of the superior agent, as if she can protect the Bus and its occupants with her body alone. She glares at her. ‘How can you be saying this?’

‘HYDRA won’t show mercy,’ Hand tells her. Her face is grimly poised. ‘Neither can we.’

It’s like, Jemma thinks desperately, the world’s been turned upside down.

She looks over Hand’s shoulder, to where Trip and Ollie have entered the room. Trip is holding her son so that Ollie is facing forward, chubby arms and legs kicking out. There is a slight glow to Trip’s cheeks and a dazed look to his face, as though he can’t quite contain his pride that she has trusted him with such an important duty. He is a good man, Jemma decides, and if they manage to survive the night she is sure he will be a friend.

Taking a deep breath, Jemma looks Hand in the eye.

‘There is no way,’ she says firmly, ‘that Coulson is HYDRA. He is a good man, a good agent! He’s…’ She hesitates, uncertain if she can use the word she wants to use to describe a senior agent. ‘He’s a friend.’

‘He’s a _liar_!’ Hand spits out the word in disgust.

She lifts her fingers and uses them to count off her accusations of Coulson in front of Jemma’s face. Listening to them – disobeying direct orders, recruiting SHIELD enemies, violating international law – Jemma feels her resolve crumple inside her. She realises she can’t deny any of them. But, even if Coulson has done all those things, that didn’t make him HYDRA.

‘You helped us save Coulson from the Clairvoyant,’ she says weakly. ‘Surely that means something.’

Hand nods. ‘Yet when we found this brain-dead Clairvoyant, Coulson's man Ward shot him before we could learn a single thing about him.’

Jemma winces at the insinuation but stands her ground. She and Fitz can’t have been working for HYDRA this whole time. They just _can’t_.

Abruptly, she moves away from Victoria Hand and takes her place next to Trip, taking her son from his arms. It is long past Ollie’s bedtime and he is tired, reaching out to pull at her hair with his sticky fingers. The sharp pain makes tears spring to Jemma’s eyes.

Hand seems to recognise her distress and steps forward.

‘The lies add up, Agent Simmons,’ she says, in a voice far softer than she’d used so far. ‘Are you telling me he’s never kept a secret from you?’

The vials of Skye’s blood in the lab instantly spring to Jemma’s mind. But in the grand scheme of things, what did such a small secret mean anyway? She keeps quiet, stubbornly keeping her head down until Agent Hand sighs, and moves away.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Jemma sets her jaw determinedly. Their plane had landed in the Hub, but her team hadn’t been found on it. This meant they’d either escaped before it docked, or they had disappeared into the depths of the Hub.

Closing her eyes, she hugs Ollie to her chest.

_Fitz_, she says silently, _where are you?_

_Come on_, _Jemma,_ Fitz wills. _Where are you?_

He is tapping furiously at computer screens in a control room at the Hub, trying to locate her and Ollie on the security system. He isn’t really thinking about anybody else, so when May jabs at the screen his heart leaps, thinking she’s found them.

‘There! Agent Hand. Outside the East wing situation room.’

‘Is Simmons there?’ With a few taps at the keys, Fitz zooms in. His pulse is racing, louder than the voices of his teammates in his ears. ‘We don’t move until we find Simmons.’

He is vaguely aware that he has no right to be so commanding over these Level Eight agents. His fear has given him tunnel vision, and right now the only thing he can think about is finding Jemma and their son.

Coulson and Garrett’s arguments – _still_ about Victoria Hand – wash over him like water off a duck’s back as he scours the security system. He forces himself to think logically: Jemma had wanted to test Skye’s blood; the encrypted line he’d set up for them had been stationed in a laboratory. He checks that one first, then all the others. Maybe she’d had to change Ollie? He checks the bathrooms, then the kitchen and canteen in case Ollie had gotten hungry.

‘She tortured you!’ Garrett bursts out from behind him. ‘Using the same machine she used to brainwash that bitch in the flower dress. And right now, she's probably doing the same to Agent Simmons.’

Fitz feels like someone had jerked the floor out from under him, sending his insides spinning.

‘No,’ he says, as if just by saying the word he can forbid the universe from making it so. ‘Don’t say that. Simmons will be fine.’

It is unthinkable that someone could torture Jemma. Images flit through his mind of the soft skin at the back of her neck, the inside of her wrists, the gentle curves of her stomach. Fitz refuses to entertain the idea of someone harming those places that only he has the privilege of knowing. He is irrationally furious with Agent Garrett for even voicing the possibility.

Garrett turns to him, hands up, as if denying responsibility. ‘Hey, I get that she’s you’re girlfriend, kid. It’s not what you want to think about. But I’m just being realistic here.’

‘I never mentioned that,’ Coulson says, and it sounds like he is a world away.

Garrett shakes his head. ‘I'm telling you, killing Vic quick would be a mercy.’

Coulson’s face is vacant, staring at him. ‘I never said Raina had been inside the machine. I never told that to anybody.’

‘I must have read it in a report, then.’

‘You weren't with us.’

Garrett’s shoulders tense, and Fitz feels the tension in the room spike. ‘The point is, how many more have to suffer before Vic gets hers?’

‘You showed up right after,’ Coulson remembers. Fitz feels like he is watching a tennis match but he can’t see the ball.

‘What are you driving at?’ Garrett’s arms cross over his chest defensively.

‘After Skye was shot.’ Coulson takes a step towards him. ‘Quinn said it was so I would lead the Clairvoyant to the cure. That's exactly what I did. I walked you right in there with me.’

All of a sudden, the pieces click into place and Fitz understands what Coulson is talking about. He understands, with a deep shiver, what he is implying.

Garrett chuckles, but Fitz can see the beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘Phil... look. It's been a rough day. I-I get it. But you need to take a second and…’

He breaks off, looking at the faces around him. Coulson can only stare, blankly, while May’s eyes are narrowing, clearly coming to the same realisation he had. When the senior agent turns to him, Fitz thinks about what he’d said.

_Right now, she's probably doing the same to Agent Simmons_.

He keeps his head up, and holds his gaze.

Garrett sighs, as though they have all disappointed him deeply. ‘Dammit.’

When the ground shakes underneath his feet and the lights go out, Fitz dives for cover.

Perhaps in a better moment he would have found the courage to pick up a spanner like Coulson and launch himself at the Hydra agent in front of him. Perhaps he’d even have had the fury to throw the first punch like Agent May.

But instead, with the threat of being shot in the kneecaps still ringing in his ears and all his hope that Jemma and Ollie are still alive gone, the first think he can think to do is duck underneath a desk. He is disgusted to find tears dribbling down his chin and horror licking at his heart.

He can’t see much. The emergency lighting is dim and it is flickering anyway, thanks to Ward and Skye’s bomb. May twists across his vision, taking down one agent and then another. A shot rings out, and Fitz sees Coulson jump on Garrett. The two of them career across the room, bursting a pipe on their way.

May moves quicker than the flickering lights, her fists fast and unflinching. One of the agents she takes down drops his gun and in the confusion Fitz finds it kicked to his side. Underneath his burning fingertips, the metal is cool and hard.

There is a shout. May tips another agent over the railings, but as she does so Fitz notices one of the fallen Hydra henchmen stagger to his feet. His hand passes over one of the bodies by his side and Fitz catches a glint of silver in the emergency light.

When May turns back, her hands raised for her next assailant, Fitz shoots first.

His aim is perfect, three shots in swift succession. He always did have a good eye. The gun falls from the Hydra agent’s hand and his body slumps back to the floor.

There is a ringing in Fitz’s ears and he drops his gun too.

A sharp slamming of flesh against ground makes him jump, and he turns his head to see Coulson lying flat on his back, just feet away from him. Garrett rises above Coulson, a knife gripped firmly in the palm of his hand.

Garrett, Fitz realises, doesn’t know he is there.

He reaches for his back pocket.

‘Coulson!’

The senior agent turns at the sound of his voice, hand outstretched to catch the cylindrical silver object Fitz tosses to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Fitz sees May duck.

Coulson clicks the EMP and a bright blast of light forces Fitz’s eyes shut. When he opens them again, Garrett and all his remaining henchmen are all on the floor.

It is at that exact moment that the doors fly open. Armed agents storm into the room and leading them Fitz can see the dark head of Victoria Hand.

‘_Hands up!_’

Both Coulson and May obey immediately. Following their lead, Fitz crawls out from underneath his desk, hands shaking as he raises them above his head.

He lifts his gaze and sees the group of soldiers in front of him ripple.

Jemma pushes herself out from between them and hurtles towards him, as fast as Ollie’s bulky baby weight will let her. Fitz barely has the time to take a step forward before they have crossed the room to his side Jemma falls into his arms, just as he lowers them from his surrender.

The force of her body against his takes his breath away and he gasps, bending forwards to envelope them both, holding them even closer. Jemma shudders in his arms and twists her head to press kiss after kiss to his neck.

Her lips are cold while her forehead is hot, and between every kiss Fitz hears her murmur, ‘I love you, I love you, I _love_ you’, and he feels tears spring to his eyes once more. It’s over.

Squashed between them, Ollie pushes at Jemma’s chest with a cry, and Fitz extricates himself from her arms enough to relieve her of their son. A sob catches in his throat as he lifts Ollie up, feeling the bristle of his curls underneath his chin, the warm weight of his baby body. He thinks how close he had come to never seeing him again.

He hugs Jemma close with his free arm, feeling her grip the straps of his vest with white fingers. With trembling lips, he kisses her forehead and rests his head on top of hers.

‘I love you too,’ he whispers back, and sends up a prayer of thanks to the God he has never been sure he believed in.

There is no soft dawn light to wake them in the Hub hangar, but it has been months since Fitz and Jemma awoke with the sun.

At five oh four precisely the baby monitor crackles into life, and Ollie’s morning cry rouses them both from the dreamless sleep they’d finally managed to fall into at about one o’clock. Jemma moans, pressing her face into the pillow. Beside her, Fitz’s eyes are still pulled stubbornly shut. She sighs, and kicks back the sheets.

‘I’ll get him.’

She is just about to step out of their bunk and into Ollie’s when the glint of something bright beneath her feet stops her. Jemma glances down and sucks in a sharp breath to see the splinters of broken glass still gathered outside their door. The events of the previous night come crashing back to her and she has to grasp the door frame to steady herself.

SHIELD has fallen. Hydra has risen. The whole world thinks of them as terrorists, out to harm rather than to help.

Breathing deeply through her nose, Jemma slips on a pair of pumps and goes in to Ollie.

He is standing up in his cot, hanging onto the handrails as he cries. His eyes dry up instantly as she comes in and he gives her a radiant smile, holding out his arms to be picked up. Usually, Jemma tries not to give in to him straight away – all her baby books tell her that this is best. But this morning she has a desperate need to hold him so she scoops him up and plants a kiss to his forehead.

‘Good morning, little darling,’ she murmurs. ‘Where’s monkey?’

She peers into the cot for Ollie’s favourite toy and, not finding it, steps backwards with a frown. Her foot lands on something soft and squishy and she almost jumps out of her skin before recognising the toy monkey.

‘Oh, Ollie. What did we say about throwing toys?’

Ollie’s lip puckers and he twists his head to press it into her shoulder. Jemma lowers him to stand on his own two feet.

‘Pick him up,’ she encourages. ‘Pick monkey up.’

Ollie hesitates for a moment, gripping her fingers tightly. But then, the temptation suddenly too much to resist, he topples forward to grab at the soft toy with one hand. Satisfied, Jemma lifts them both back into her arms to carry them across the broken glass to their bunk.

‘We’re going to be very busy this morning,’ she remarks to Fitz as she deposits Ollie and the monkey into their bed. ‘The Bus is a mess.’

Fitz grunts in response. He hasn’t moved from where she left him, hunched on his side underneath the sheets. Jemma bites her lip.

‘I expect we’ll be needed early. The mechanics will need looking at, as well as the central controls. I doubt we’ll be ready to fly before lunchtime.’

Again, she receives no answer. Ollie crawls towards his father’s knee, babbling incoherently, and Fitz finally rouses himself. Sitting up, he takes Ollie into his lap and leans back against the bunk wall.

Jemma knows better than anyone that her best friend is not a morning person. But she recognises this reticence as something far bigger than just his dislike of being woken early.

‘Fitz,’ she says quietly. ‘Shall we talk?’

He shrugs, fanning his fingers through Ollie’s sandy curls. ‘What is there to talk about?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Jemma gives a breathy laugh. ‘The fact that the organisation we’ve both worked for since childhood has been infiltrated by terrorists. How you must have felt when the Bus was shot at. How afraid we both were when we thought we’d never see each other again.’

Ollie’s toy monkey has found its way into her hands and she picks at its fur with her thumb and forefinger.

‘Or,’ she says haltingly when Fitz remains quiet. ‘We could start with something smaller.’

‘Oh, yeah? Like what?’

Jemma pauses. ‘Like the gun.’

She feels Fitz stiffen beside her. It is a moment or two before he says, hoarsely, ‘I didn’t think you knew.’

‘May told me.’ The older agent had taken her to one side before they’d retired for bed and quietly told her what Fitz had done. Jemma had lain beside him all night, waiting. ‘But I wish you had too.’

Fitz screws his eyes shut and passes his hand over his face. ‘I didn’t want to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Jemma, I shot someone.’

‘He was a Hydra agent. A Nazi. They hardly count.’

‘He was a human being!’

‘Who was about to kill May!’ Jemma shakes her head, suddenly irritated. ‘I’m your best friend, Fitz. Your partner. Why on earth wouldn’t I be the first person you talked to about this?’

‘Because,’ Fitz says with a crack in his voice, ‘it changes things. It changes me.’

Jemma’s frustration cools as quickly as it had flared.

‘Oh, Fitz,’ she says softly, ‘of course it doesn’t.’

‘It _does_.’ He looks up at her. ‘Before yesterday, I was just a scientist. Best suited to microscopes and schematics. But now I’m a…’

He trails off, his unspoken word hanging heavy between them.

‘We’re SHIELD agents,’ Jemma says, keeping her words even. ‘We’ve always known that this job requires us to be more than just one thing, Fitz. That maybe, at some point, it would need us to do what you did last night.’

Fitz sniffs, unconvinced. When Ollie struggles off his lap and crawls off in search of his monkey, Jemma takes the opportunity to grab his hand and hold it tight. Tilting his face up to meet hers, she speaks the words May had known he would need to hear, words she had also known he would only listen to if they came from her.

‘If you could go back,’ she asks, ‘would you change what you did?’

Fitz’s eyes narrow and she can see him struggle, can feel it in her very bones. She hopes that if their roles are ever reversed and she is the one feeling this kind of pain that she will be able to remember this moment.

‘No,’ Fitz says eventually. ‘No, of course I wouldn’t.’

Jemma releases her breath. Nodding, she leans forward until their foreheads are touching and she can feel the press of his pulse against her skin.

‘Well, then,’ she breathes. ‘Well, then.’

Maybe he is changed. Perhaps they both are. But that doesn’t mean they will love each other any less.

‘Fitz! Be careful!’

Fitz grits his teeth as he reaches for a nearby tree branch to regain his balance. The patch of black ice had come out of nowhere and been hidden by a fresh blanket of snow. Given the extra weight on his chest, if he’d been going any faster than his slow shuffle both he and Ollie would have gone flying.

‘I _am_ being careful,’ he says, batting off Jemma’s mitten-covered hands as she tries to steady him. Beneath the four layers of thermals he had donned before stepping off the Bus, his heart is playing catch up with his feet. ‘I just slipped on some bloody ice, that’s all.’

He is trying not to be gruff with her, especially after the morning they’ve had. But after almost two hours tramping through the snow, Fitz is feeling his temper start to fray.

‘Hmm.’ Jemma frowns. Or, at least, Fitz assumes that she does. Between her purple woolly hat – one his mother had knitted for her last Christmas – and her coat zipped up to her lips, he can really only see her nose and eyes. ‘Is Ollie alright?’

If it is difficult to make out Jemma’s expression, trying to tell what Ollie is feeling is almost impossible. The two of them have wrapped him up so securely that only his wide amber eyes can peek out of his snow suit. Skye had laughed till she’d cried when they’d carried him out of their bunk earlier.

‘He looks like a starfish,’ she’d wheezed, wiping tears from her eyes as Jemma harrumphed indignantly. It had been a bright spot in what has otherwise been one of their darker days.

‘He’s fine,’ Fitz assures her. Ollie blinks up at them from the baby bjorn strapped to his chest. ‘He can’t move enough to be anything _other_ than fine.’

Jemma rolls her eyes at him and tweaks at the collar of Ollie’s snow suit. ‘Maybe I ought to take him back. Then you can properly concentrate on your tablet and…’

‘Jemma, no.’ Fitz shakes his head firmly. ‘You carried him for over an hour. Your back will be killing you.’

She huffs, but lets Ollie go. ‘Better my back than a Hydra ambush.’

‘We aren’t going to get ambushed by Hydra,’ Fitz tells her, trying to sound more confident than he feels. He shows her the tablet he is carrying in his hands. ‘That’s why I’m constantly scanning the area, remember?’

Jemma nods. ‘Right. You’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right.’ Fitz takes her hand. ‘Now, come on. We don’t want to get left behind.’

He leads her forward, following the rest of their team into the Canadian landscape. A light snowfall had started to wet their gloves a while back, the drifts beneath their feet getting thicker by the second. Wherever Coulson might think he’s leading them, Fitz doesn’t want to lose sight of him. It’s a long way from the middle of nowhere to…well, anywhere.

Glancing down at the tablet, he shakes his head.

‘This isn’t good.’

‘What?’ Jemma leans over his shoulder, her cold nose pressed to his cheek. ‘What isn’t good? Is it bears?’

‘What?’ Fitz twists his head to give her an incredulous look. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Canada has three native species,’ Jemma informs him. She tucks her hand tightly into his elbow, glancing over their shoulder. ‘And polar bears have been known to wander down into their mountains, too. We’re in polar bear territory here, Fitz.’

‘No, we’re not,’ Fitz says decisively. Mentally though, he starts keeping a closer ear out for the snapping of twigs behind them. ‘There are no bears here. In fact, there isn’t anything here. No towns or buildings for miles, much further than we could ever safely walk.’

Jemma falls silent, processing this. ‘Then where is Coulson taking us?’

Fitz shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. He must know.’

‘_Must_ he?’ Jemma sighs deeply. ‘I know you said earlier that we should stick with the man we believe in. And I do believe in Coulson, I really do. But when do we say _enough_?’

Fitz doesn’t know how to answer her.

When he’d said that earlier, he’d felt like his nose had been put out of joint by Agent Triplett. He and Jemma had clearly bonded during their time at the Hub, and even Ollie was happy to be held by the other agent. Partly, he’d been speaking out of a ludicrous jealousy.

But even more than that, he’d felt a duty to Coulson as their team’s leader. Fitz had stood beside him in the dark situation room and thought that his voice would be the last thing he’d heard before being taken hostage by Hydra. He’d seen Coulson’s loyalty first-hand and wanted to repay it.

But, like Jemma said, when was it enough? Coulson was leading them through a snowstorm to find a dead man. And, while Ollie might have good Northern genes, he hadn’t yet put them to the test by living through a proper Glaswegian winter. When did Fitz have to put his foot down and take his family to safety?

‘I don’t know, Jemma,’ he says eventually. ‘What else would we do?’

‘That’s the problem,’ she admits. ‘We don’t have anywhere else to go.’

It’s a rather dismal thought, and for a while they lapse into silence as they continue to walk. Beneath their feet, fresh snow crunches, forming an icy crust on their boots. Fitz can feel his toes turning numb.

‘Say that we could,’ he says suddenly. ‘Where would you want to go?’

‘If we could go anywhere?’ Jemma pushes a snow-laden branch out of their way. ‘Right now I’m favouring anywhere without snow.’

Fitz grins. ‘Hawaii.’

‘Morocco.’

‘The Seychelles.’

‘Oh.’ Jemma inhales deeply, as though the warm ocean air is already blowing across their faces. ‘We’d have a beachside villa with palm trees and a pool and I’d wear nothing but bathing suits all day.’

‘Sounds like my kind of place.’ Fitz barely feels her punch his arm through his four thermal layers. ‘How are we going to afford this dream home, then?’

‘I’m sure between the two of us we can come up with something,’ Jemma says assuredly.

‘We could go rogue,’ Fitz muses aloud. ‘After all, we’re already fugitives of the law, escapees of a US army general. What’s a little Bonnie and Clyde act compared to that?’

He expects Jemma to balk at the idea of stealing, fully prepared to gently tease her for her rigidity when it came to following the rules. Instead, he is surprised to feel her mitten-ed fingers slip into his hand.

‘You’d make such a dashing Clyde,’ she tells him.

Fitz’s smile melts his frozen cheeks. ‘And you’d be a beautiful Bonnie.’

Jemma laughs, her voice carrying so far that Agent Triplett and Skye turn to look at them. When she swings their clasped hands, Fitz feels more warmed than he could ever be sunning himself in the Seychelles.

But, as they continue to trudge through snow that is rapidly becoming ankle deep, the dream slowly ebbs away and the chill returns to his bones. They still do not know where they are going. They still have no idea whether the man they trust is leading them into a trap. They don’t know when their next meal will be, or where they will find a place to rest their heads.

It is this series of sobering thoughts that turns Fitz serious.

‘I stand by what I said, though,’ he says. ‘Before all this began.’

Jemma’s breath puffs out in a white cloud as she stops, turning to look at him. ‘And what was that?’

Tucking his tablet underneath his armpit, Fitz takes both of her hands in his and holds her gaze. ‘That no matter where we end up, I’ll be okay.’ He nods downwards to Ollie, drifting into sleep against his chest. ‘Just as long as I always have the two of you.’

Jemma tilts her head to one side, her eyes softening. She takes a step closer to him and lifts herself up onto her tiptoes to rub her nose against his own. Her skin is freezing cold and Fitz’s nose is so numb that he can hardly feel it, but it makes him smile anyway.

‘Wild polar bears,’ Jemma declares, ‘couldn’t tear us away from you.’

When they kiss, cold cheeks pressed tight and snowflakes gathering on their eyelashes, it feels stabilising. It feels like a promise of shared strength and a determination to stick together until the very end.

Jemma has forgotten Ollie’s toothbrush.

She discovers this while sitting on Maria Hill’s plane. Fitz is by her side, Ollie playing with a brightly coloured rattle on his lap, and Trip is buckled in opposite them. They are waiting for Coulson and Skye to make contact, to tell them that they are safe, and they have been waiting long enough for everyone’s patience to be running out and their nerves to be wearing thin.

Tension hangs in the small plane like smoke and Jemma takes to rummaging through the nappy bag, which she had hastily packed with a change of Ollie’s clothes and extra essentials before they’d fled Providence, in a desperate attempt to distract herself. She happens to glance inside Ollie’s washkit and experiences an inappropriate rush of what feels a little like relief.

She lifts her head. ‘I don’t have Ollie’s toothbrush.’

Next to her, Fitz doesn’t make a sound. Trip cocks his head to one side.

‘Sorry, Simmons. What did you say?’

‘Ollie’s toothbrush,’ Jemma repeats, watching her fingertips tremble on top of the bag. ‘I don’t have it. I went into the bathroom to grab his flannel and I saw the brush on the side, but I…’ She shakes her head. ‘I must have forgotten to pick it up. He doesn’t have his toothbrush.’

Fitz sighs, and reaches out to cover her hand with his own. He starts to rub his thumb across her skin in slow, comforting motions, while Ollie shakes his rattle violently on his lap. Trip’s forehead puckers.

‘I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal,’ he says. ‘How many teeth has he even got? Three? Four?’

‘Six,’ Fitz mutters, half under his breath.

Trip tries to look reassuring. ‘I expect you can skip his dental routine once, Simmons, given the circumstances.’

Jemma nods, but at the same time she feels a flare of irritation towards him for providing a perfectly rational solution to her problem. This is, of course, highly unfair of her. How could she ever expect Trip to understand, like Fitz does, that the problem isn’t really Ollie’s toothbrush at all?

In psychiatric terms, Jemma believes they call it displacement. She is well aware that it is not the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but that doesn’t seem to matter to her mind.

The other problems they are facing, including but not restricted to Ward being Hydra, Skye being held hostage, May being gone, the world turned upside down and inside out…well, all of those are too large and too complex to even begin to process. But Ollie’s toothbrush, left alone in the beaker at Providence, is small and inconsequential enough for Jemma to handle. And so she latches onto it, like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

Luckily, it is only a few minutes later that they receive a call from Skye. She informs them that she and Coulson are waiting in Lola in downtown LA, and also that they need twenty dollars for valet parking. As Maria Hill turns the plane off the runway, Jemma starts to rummage down the seats of the plane for any spare change, grateful for something to occupy her hands.

The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur. By early evening, Coulson has booked them into a motel in one of LA’s quieter neighbourhoods, a sprawling building with dark pine furniture and an outdoor pool. Despite the brown leaves sunken to its bottom, Skye insists on jumping, fully clothed, into it. Her splash sends waves of water spilling over the edges and Jemma, who is sitting on a sun lounger with Ollie, suddenly finds her shoes and jeans soaked.

She hops to her feet with a squeak. ‘Skye! Was that really necessary?’

Skye surfaces, her dark hair fanning out on the water around her. She laughs and brushes droplets off her eyelashes. ‘Sorry, Simmons. But, yeah. It was totally necessary.’

She swims over to the side of the pool and chips her nails against the ceramic tiles.

‘I needed to get the feel of him off.’

Jemma grimaces, feeling a sharp pang of betrayal in her chest. Hoisting Ollie into her arms, she walks over to crouch down beside her.

‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Skye,’ she says softly. ‘Truly I am. You must have been so scared.’

Skye pulls a face. ‘At first I was too angry with him to be scared,’ she admits, ‘but then, yeah, I was. Which was kind of stupid, I can see that now.’

Jemma frowns and shakes her head. ‘Why on earth would that be stupid?’

‘Because I knew you guys would come for me,’ Skye says. She looks up and gives her a nervous smile. ‘That’s what family does, right?’

Feeling a sudden wave of affection for her, Jemma returns the smile. ‘Of course it is.’

By this point, Ollie has grown impatient on her hip and begins to struggle for release. Jemma wobbles, and only just catches herself from falling into the pool by grabbing onto the ledge. Huffing, she sits back on her heels and wraps her arms tightly around Ollie’s waist, despite his wail of protest.

Skye chuckles and reaches out of the water. ‘Here, give him to me.’

Eyeing the layer of grime at the bottom of the pool, Jemma wrinkles her nose. ‘When do you think they last cleaned that?’

‘Oh, come on, Simmons.’ Skye rolls her eyes good naturedly. ‘Live a little.’

Jemma primes herself to argue further, to cite the number of infections one could catch from dirty water or to point out that, along with his toothbrush, she also forgot to pack Ollie’s swimming trunks. But then she remembers what Trip had said on the plane and decides that he is right. Surely given the circumstances one night-time swim will not harm her son, as long as he is wrapped tightly in towels and put to bed straight after.

Ollie shrieks with delight as she passes him to Skye, who holds him in the water so he can kick out his feet as though he is swimming on his own. The sound of his baby laughter echoes across the motel courtyard, lifting Jemma’s heart and soothing the gnawing worry in her chest. She unlaces her shoes and pulls off her socks.

‘Now there’s a sight I never thought I’d see.’

Fitz’s voice behind her makes her jump. Twisting to look over her shoulder, Jemma feels strangely guilty.

‘He’s going to bed straight afterwards,’ she says defensively as he sits beside her on the pool edge. ‘Not even a bedtime story.’

‘I wasn’t talking about that,’ Fitz replies. He nudges her shoulder. ‘I was talking about you about to dip your feet into a pool that hasn’t been cleaned this side of the millennium.’

Jemma snorts, and pointedly swings her legs into the water. It is lukewarm, almost the same temperature as the air around them.

‘I suppose it’s just a day for the unexpected,’ she says without thinking.

‘Hmm.’ Fitz’s grunt is barely an answer. After a few moments, he says darkly, ‘I can’t believe Ward would do this. I can’t believe he’s been Hydra this whole time.’

Jemma swallows. If her coping mechanism has been displacement, Fitz’s has been outright denial.

‘Fitz,’ she says quietly.

He shakes his head, leaning forward. On the pool ledge, his knuckles are white. ‘There has to be another explanation.’

‘Please,’ Jemma whispers. ‘Let’s not talk about him. I don’t want to talk about him.’

Fitz frowns, lifting his head as though he is about to argue with her and press his point. But then he meets her eye and something falters in his face. His shoulders slump. Seeing him so defeated makes Jemma’s heart ache.

Fitz gives a curt nod and turns his attention back to the pool, where Trip has stripped off and is joining Skye and Ollie in the water. Trip lifts their son high in the air and makes a noise like airplane thrusters as he wiggles him about, much to Ollie’s amusement.

‘Before we drop it though,’ Fitz says abruptly, ‘can you promise me something?’

His hand has crept along the edge of the pool to find hers, his fingers wrapping tight around her own. Surprised, Jemma nods.

‘Of course. Anything.’

‘Tell me that you’re not Hydra.’

Jemma’s head shoots up. ‘What?’

Fitz is shaking his head, unable or unwilling to look up at her.

‘I know it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever asked you to do, and I know exactly what the answer will be. But I just…’ He inhales shakily. ‘I need to hear you say it.’

Jemma closes her eyes. She takes a moment to suck in a deep breath before opening them again and finding Fitz’s face. As she does so, she can see the vulnerability in his eyes and a need for reassurance she understands so deeply that it feels like a shared experience.

They have no need for coping mechanisms when they are with each other. They can fall apart and be put back together with the touch of a hand.

Gently, Jemma reaches out and touches his face, turning him towards her.

‘No,’ she whispers. ‘I’m not Hydra.’

Fitz breathes out, relief inflating his chest like a balloon. ‘Right.’ The barest flicker of a smile passes over his features. ‘Of course. Of course, you’re not. And I’m not either.’

‘No,’ Jemma agrees, ‘you’re definitely not.’

‘Jemma?’

‘Oh, Fitz, what now?’

This time, it is _his_ hand on _her_ face, cupping her cheek as he kisses her soundly. The kiss is unexpected, but more than welcome. Jemma melts into it instantly. She tips her forehead forwards to rest against his with the distinct sense that, despite their being homeless, she is coming home.

As Fitz’s tongue slides into her mouth, prising her lips open to deepen their kiss, he uses his free hand to manoeuvre her legs out of the water. He rests them on his lap, where Jemma is sure they will be bleeding dirty pool water onto his jeans, but he does not appear to care. In this moment, all he seems to be thinking about is the movement of her lips against his and, as his fingers press into the underside of her knees, Jemma feels the exact same way.

When Fitz pulls away, slightly breathlessly, and asks her a silent question with a single glance, she gives him an almost imperceptible nod.

Hand in hand, they leave the poolside, abandoning Jemma’s socks and shoes and trusting their son to their team. They find their room and Fitz fumbles with the key card in the door before it falls open and they fall after it.

Inside the room it is dark, the furniture merely muddles of shapes and muted colours in the background, but they have no trouble finding each other. They never have.

Fitz pulls her close to him, his hands threading through her hair, and Jemma pushes herself up on tiptoes to meet his lips. The hunger they’d both felt for comfort down by the pool is spilling out of them now, the pace of their kisses rising with the heat of their skin.

When Fitz’s arms slide down to her waist, Jemma lets him lift her and carry her over the scratchy blue carpet to their bed. He lets her down gently onto the quilt and kisses her neck before kicking off his shoes and joining her.

As their bodies start to move together, falling effortlessly into a rhythm that is as easy as breathing, it feels as though everything happening around them no longer exists. The world shrinks, to their four walls, two heartbeats and one love.

Fitz’s breath is hot on Jemma’s skin as she peels off her shirt. He runs his fingertip down her bare breastbone and smiles, his eyes lit up by the hazy streetlamp outside their window.

‘Are you alright?’ he whispers.

Jemma nods, smiling back at him. ‘Yes.’

Later, when her entire body is humming with pleasure and the sheets are lying tangled by their feet, she will realise quite how true this is. They will survive anything, just as long as they have their son and each other.

Fitz had known it would be a bad day even before he’d opened his eyes. In his defence, it was hard to be optimistic about life when you were homeless, living out of a motel, and being hunted by the government and a deceitful pack of Nazis. Only someone like Jemma, who had snuck out from under his arms to sweettalk the motel staff into making them a stack of waffles for breakfast, was able to find the light in so much uncertainty.

The waffle had been a momentary bright spot in the morning. Ollie was cutting a new tooth and was miserable; he’d cheered briefly when Fitz had danced Trip’s grandfather’s cigarette laser for his amusement, but the accidental vandalism of the motel curtain had cut that short.

Then, Coulson had admitted that for their plan to work it was necessary for he and Jemma to disclose the secrets of some of their designs, to Cybertek of all people. Fitz had balked at this initially, only to feel irrationally insulted when the scientists May and Coulson spoke to turned their noses up at the ICER.

The icing on the cake, however, had been the fight with Skye outside the motel. When Jemma had asked him not to talk about Ward last night, he had listened. But once the team were discussing him and Garrett again, Fitz had spoken his mind. He couldn’t believe, not yet, that the man who had acted so convincingly as a friend had always been an enemy.

‘I won’t believe it,’ he had said fiercely, ‘not until I see something with my own eyes that changes my mind.’

The argument had left a bad taste in his mouth, made even worse by the splitting up of their team. Unease had swirled in Fitz’s stomach as he, Jemma and Ollie struck out on their own, in search of their plane, their enemies, and, Fitz at least had hope, their friend.

They got lucky whilst scouting out an airfield three hours outside of Havana. The Bus is sitting on the runway, being loaded with supplies by Hydra agents all dressed in black.

‘I know we’re obeying orders,’ Jemma murmurs, ‘but it feels so wrong to be standing here and not engaging.’

She is peering out of the control room window, binoculars angled to get a better view. Every so often, she bounces on the balls of her feet to keep Ollie, strapped to her chest in his baby bjorn, soothed. Finally, after long hours gnawing on a teething toy, he has fallen into a fitful sleep.

Fitz hums in response. While he is largely thankful Coulson hasn’t asked them to endanger themselves approaching the Bus, part of him wants their plane back. He’d left most of his clothes on there, and his razor. Although Jemma hadn’t complained about the bristly stubble slowly growing over his chin last night, the corners of her mouth look a little red in the daylight.

‘What about a DWARF?’ Jemma says suddenly. She turns to him, her eyes bright. ‘It could stow away on the Bus without being detected and we’d be able to find out where it’s going.’

It’s a brilliant idea, and Fitz wonders why he hadn’t thought of it himself. He clicks his fingers. ‘Excellent thinking, Simmons,’ he says.

She grins, the praise making her smug.

‘Who shall we send?’

‘Sleepy, of course.’ Fitz clicks open the DWARF case to select the tiny drone. The weight of the metal in his hands feels reassuring, a solution to one of their many problems. ‘Next to you, he is our best listener.’

‘Aw.’ He feels Jemma’s fingers trail down his arm as he lifts Sleepy to the open window to let him fly free. ‘You sap.’

‘Only for you.’

She chuckles, a low sound that warms him through, then frowns as Ollie wakes against her chest. His face screws up dangerously and he gives a few stifled cries.

‘Oh dear, Ollie. Did we wake you up?’

Fitz checks his watch and winces. ‘Actually, it’s past four. He’s probably hungry.’

‘Oh! I hadn’t even noticed.’ Jemma shakes her head. ‘I left his bottle in the car. Would you mind…?’

‘Course not.’ Fitz passes her the tablet controlling Sleepy, taking the opportunity to brush his hand over the top of Ollie’s head as he does so. ‘Back in a tick.’

And he probably would have been had his path not been blocked by Ward, who appears in the doorway with a grimness to his face that sends a shiver down Fitz’s spine. Involuntarily, he takes a step back.

‘Hi, Fitz,’ Ward says. ‘Long time no see.’

As Fitz stares at him, a lot of things happen in quick succession. The first is the cocking of a gun behind him, and the second is Jemma letting out a sharp gasp. Putting the two sounds together, Fitz realises that Ward has brought a Hydra agent along as back up and that they are poised to shoot his best friend and his son if any of them put a foot wrong.

The next thing that happens occurs right in front of Fitz. He watches, as Ward’s gaze flickers past him to where Jemma and Ollie are standing. The look in his eyes is so passive, so uninterested. It is cold and unflinching and Fitz feels something inside him snap.

If Ward had a mind to, he could kill the most important people in the world to him with a nod of his head. And it would cost him next to nothing to do so.

The realisation seems to slow time for Fitz, freezing him to the spot, so that when Ward opens his mouth again he barely registers what he says. It is only when the explosion happens that things start to speed up again.

The walls of the control room shake with the force of the blast, made as they are from flimsy panels of wood and wicker. Fitz throws himself to one side, as far away from Ward as he can, and hits the floor with a grunt. Needles of sharp pain shoot up his arm and he lifts his hand to find that he has landed on a pile of shattered glass. He lifts his head, ignoring the way it screams in protest, desperate to find Jemma and Ollie in the chaos.

The DWARF tablet lies at Jemma’s feet. Fitz can see a large crack spreading like a spider’s web down its screen, which is flashing luminous red at him. Glancing up at the shattered window in front of her, Fitz puts two and two together.

He’d protested against installing a kill switch in their tiny drones when Jemma had first suggested it. Now, though, he is grateful she’d fought him hard enough to keep it.

The Hydra guard outside the window had felt the full force of Sleepy’s self-destruction. He is on the ground, hands clamped over his ears and wincing, but now that the shock is over he is starting to stagger to his feet. Jemma, however, is faster.

With one hand covering Ollie’s head, she jumps up from her protective crouch under the table. With one, fluid motion, she reaches for the ICER Fitz had left by their bags and aims it out the window, just as the Hydra guard comes into view.

She shoots, and for once her aim is as good as it needs to be. The Hydra agent goes down with a flash of blue light and Jemma drops the gun like it is white-hot. She turns to him, and her eyes widen.

‘Fitz!’

Fitz follows her gaze. Ward had fallen against the door in the blast, hitting his head hard, but now he is almost on his feet again. On his face is a look of absolute fury, one that Fitz realises with horror is directed right at Jemma.

Without thinking, he pushes himself off the floor and lunges at him. Ward can’t have been expecting this because he stumbles, significantly enough for Fitz to knock him to the ground.

Once there, he blanks on what to do next. Most of the rudimentary combat training he’d received has urged him to use his size to his advantage, but Fitz knows that this could only get him so far. Right now, for example, he’s been able to use his lower centre of gravity to make Ward lose his balance, but he knows that one well aimed punch from the other man’s fist will end the fight as quickly as it has begun.

As Ward starts to struggle underneath him, Fitz sees Jemma’s reflection in the glass of the cabinet in front of him. She has Ollie cradled to her chest and the ICER weighed in her hands.

Ward might be bigger, faster, and stronger. But Fitz will be damned if he lets him be smarter.

He lets his body go floppy, allowing himself to be easily overpowered. Ward tosses him off so that he hits the floor again. Winded, Fitz has to fight the urge to scramble away as Ward descends on him, both hands coming up to grip him about the throat.

‘Stop it,’ he grunts. ‘Stop fighting.’

‘No.’ Jemma’s voice behind them rings out, clear as a bell. ‘Never.’

She fires the ICER, and Ward’s eyes glow blue before falling shut. His limbs go slack and Fitz gulps loudly as his throat is released and he can breathe again.

Ward’s body slumps against his, uncomfortably heavy, and Jemma drops to her knees to help him wriggle out from underneath it. Once he is free, she flings her arms around his neck and hugs him tight, every part of her shaking.

For the briefest of moments, Fitz allows himself to hold her. But he knows they are not out of danger yet, and if they want to stay safe then they have to move.

‘Jemma,’ he says.

She doesn’t reply, just presses her face further into his shoulder. Between them, Ollie is crying with his whole chest, a sound that pains Fitz’s heart.

‘Jemma,’ he says again, urgently. ‘We have to go. They’ll have heard the explosion. They’ll be coming for us.’

He is relieved when, this time, Jemma lifts her head. Her hair has come lose from her ponytail and there is a deep scratch on her temple bleeding into her hairline, but she nods purposely anyway.

‘Yes.’

They hear the shouts even before they leave the control room. Fitz’s stomach clenches and he laces his fingers through Jemma’s as they run.

‘We need to get to the car!’ he calls to her, fumbling in his pockets for the keys.

‘No!’ Jemma skids to a halt, pulling him with her, and points. ‘Fitz, look!’

Fitz looks, and swears loudly when he sees the slashed tires on their car. A parting gift from Ward, he thinks bitterly.

A shot rings out behind them, making Jemma jump and Ollie scream. Turning, Fitz can see a group of Hydra soldiers running towards them from the Bus, all of them heavily armed. They are running dangerously out of time.

Scanning the airfield in desperation, Fitz’s gaze latches onto an old Ford Fairline across the street, turned grey with dust but, hopefully, still in running condition. Gritting his teeth, he tightens his grip on Jemma’s hand and tugs her forward.

‘Fitz!’ she yells, glancing over her shoulder at the rapidly approaching soldiers.

‘It’s fine,’ he shouts over the sound of gunfire, ‘everything’s fine, just get in the car!’

He lets go of her hand to let her hurry around to the passenger seat, while he flings open the driver’s door to get to the wiring. Jemma does the same on the other side, then stops.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘No car seat!’

It is the most ridiculous thing she has ever said, and Fitz has never wanted to kiss her more in his life.

A stray bullet wizzes past their ears to land in a nearby tree. He yelps.

‘Jemma!’

‘Right!’ She scrambles into the passenger seat and pulls the seatbelt across herself and Ollie, mumbling, ‘not appropriate, not appropriate’ half under her breath.

Shaking his head, Fitz turns to the wires. It is a long time since he has hot-wired a car, but however distracted his mind might be, his fingers still move with muscle memory and it is mere seconds before he feels the engine thrum beneath them.

Jumping into the driving seat, Fitz realises that this has come not a moment too soon. Two Hydra soldiers are almost on them, brandishing guns that were definitely not ICERS right through their windshield. Fitz tenses his jaw and hits the accelerator.

Despite the Ford’s age, it roars into life spectacularly. Within moments, the Hydra goons are on the ground and the car is speeding its way out of the airfield. Its controls are unpredictable, and Fitz hasn’t driven anything but automatic for years, but he manages to keep it on the road.

He keeps his eyes on the horizon and his hands on the wheel until the gunshots and shouts behind them are lost on the wind and Hydra is left in the dust.

They drive for hours, avoiding main roads and security cameras, until the Fairline runs out of gas several miles outside of Punta de Maisi. Fitz pulls it into a layby overlooking the sea and lets the engine roll over, so that the only sound is the crashing of the waves below them.

Exhausted, he leans back in his seat.

‘I’m sorry about Sleepy,’ Jemma says. She’d been quiet during the drive; they both had. Even Ollie had fallen asleep, rocked by the motion of the car and soothed by the sound of the wind. He is stirring now though, blinking his bleary amber eyes open and yawning.

Fitz feels a sudden, misdirected pain for the tiny drone.

‘You shouldn’t be,’ he replies, his voice croaky from disuse. ‘You did what you had to do.’ He thinks of the DWARF case, left behind in the control room, with it’s empty seventh slot. ‘Besides, we can always build him again.’

Jemma nods, then hesitates.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d do it,’ she says haltingly.

Fitz frowns. ‘Do what?’

‘Fight Ward.’ Jemma glances at him sideways. ‘You were so convinced there was good in him still.’

Driving, Fitz had been able to put all thoughts of Ward out of his mind. Now though, it all comes flooding back. He drops his fist onto the steering wheel.

‘I said I wouldn’t believe he was the enemy until I saw something to prove it with my own eyes,’ he reminds her. ‘And I did. So I changed my mind.’

Jemma’s teeth catch on her bottom lip. ‘What did you see?’ she asks.

‘That he was willing to hurt you and Ollie to get what he wanted.’ Looking up, Fitz meets her gaze and holds it. ‘And that’s something I can’t forget or forgive.’

He watches Jemma swallow as though it pains her, and she reaches for his hand. He lets her take it and feels tears spring to his eyes as she squeezes his fingers, tight. In front of them, the sun is beginning to go down.

Suddenly, something occurs to Fitz and he groans.

‘Have you got your phone on you?’

Jemma frowns and pats down the pockets of her jeans. ‘No, I…’ Realisation dawns on her face and she grimaces at him. ‘I must have left it in the control room.’

‘Yeah, me too. You don’t happen to know…’

‘…anyone’s number? Not since Skye bought us all those burner phones, no.’ Jemma sighs, massaging her temple with her fingers. ‘They’ll have left the island by now, they won’t let Garrett and Ward get away. What on earth are we going to do?’

It is a good question, and one that, for once, Fitz doesn’t know how to answer. For the last decade, their lives have been structured with orders and directions. Even if they have not always known what they were doing, there had always been someone higher up the chain who had. This is the first time in a long time that they have been entirely on their own.

In his baby bjorn, Ollie is fussing. Leaning across the car, Fitz unbuckles him from Jemma’s chest and lifts him over onto his own lap. Making sure the brakes are firmly on, he lets Ollie grip the steering wheel in front of him, watching his tiny hands grasp at the worn leather.

‘Well,’ he says eventually, ‘I know it wasn’t our first choice, but Hawaii is definitely closer than the Seychelles.’

For a moment, Jemma blinks at him. Then, she snorts.

‘Oh, yes? And how do you propose we get off the island?’ She reaches over to tweak Ollie’s nose. ‘Our son may be the most adorable baby in the world, but I doubt even his cheeks are chubby enough to charm our way onto a private aircraft.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Fitz admits, before reaching into his back pocket. ‘But this might be.’

The leather wallet he produces is rather battered and smells distinctly of cheap aftershave. Jemma gasps as he opens it, showing her that it is stuffed full of hundred-dollar bills and Cuban peso notes.

‘Fitz! How on earth did you…’

‘Ward always keeps his wallet in his top right-hand jacket pocket,’ Fitz tells her with a grim satisfaction. ‘Have you never noticed?’

Jemma laughs. ‘So now we’ve committed grand theft auto _and_ stolen thousands of dollars in cash. Looks like we could be Bonnie and Clyde after all.’

Fitz grins at her. ‘Maybe so.’

Returning his smile, Jemma shifts in her seat so that she can lay her head on his shoulder. The cut on her forehead has dried up now and Fitz licks his thumb to clean away the crusted blood. His own hand still stings where he’d landed on the broken glass, but he doesn’t think there will be any permanent damage. Just a scar, perhaps.

‘Fitz?’ Jemma says quietly. She twists her head around to look at him. ‘We can’t just leave, can we?’

Fitz stares out to sea. Somewhere far beyond the horizon, their team are still fighting, willing to do whatever it takes to bring Hydra down. At some point, somehow, he, Jemma and Ollie will need to find them and re-join their family.

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Not yet, anyway. We’ve started this now. We need to see it through to the end.’

They get out of the Ford Fairline and stretch, shaking life back into their aching limbs. Fitz takes charge of the baby bjorn and Jemma straps Ollie securely onto his chest. The gentle weight of his son in front of him feels like an anchor for Fitz, reminding him exactly what it is they are fighting for.

As they walk away, heading in the direction of the Punta and, with any luck, a boat, he activates the homing beacon on the walkie-talkie Trip had given him. Fitz knows that they are a long way out of range, but he has hope that the signal will still get through. He would like to think that their team know they’re all still alive.

The road is dusty, covered with pebbles and shells. Jemma kicks one as she takes his hand, swinging it between them.

‘Hey,’ she says softly, ‘after this is all over, what would you think about going home?’

The thing about Jemma is that she has always had an uncanny ability to always know exactly where they needed to go. She had fought for them to be stationed at Sci-Ops in order to make the best of its superior resources. Once she was pregnant, she had suggested moving back to the Academy for the slower paced days. And, in spite of everything, Fitz can now see that going into the field had been the right choice for them all.

He and Jemma have become better on the Bus. They are better agents, better parents, better people. Wherever they go next, Fitz can only hope that they will continue to grow. Together.

In front of them the sun has sunk low, its rays bleeding into the ocean until the water is shimmering with golden light. There is a long walk ahead of them, maybe an even longer fight, but in this moment Fitz feels an unmistakable peace.

Against his chest, Ollie is snoring, a small trail of dribble wetting his shirt. Fitz smiles, and lifts Jemma’s hand to his lips to kisses her knuckles, one by one.

‘I am home,’ he says simply, ‘whenever I’m with you.’


End file.
